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Copyright N° 

COPHilGHT DEPOSIT. 



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txccstviil ^Tijetirhi^s 



RECORDS OF OLDEN TIMES 



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■^6 



"TOUT LASSE,— TOUT PASSE ! " 

ANCIEN PROVERRK 




FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY 




ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY 
NEW YORK 



,\v, 



Copyright, 1882, Bv 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH S CO. 



/'r inter and Stereotype. 
20 Norlh William St. 



TO 

MY CHILDREN, 

THESE ANCESTRAL SKETCHES, PREPARED FOR THEM, 

ARE 

AFFECTIONATELY OFFERED. 

JI.\NURSING ISL.AND, 
1882. 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Introduction, --------- vii 

The Huguenots, -----.--. i 

The Bayards of New York. ---... ng 

Nicholas Bavard, and His Times, ----- 63 

The "Tories" of the American Revolution,- - - 129 

The Growth of New York. - - - - - - 159 

Governor-General Vetch, of Nova Scotia, - - - 183 

Governor Fitch, of Connecticut, and His Times, - 217 
Appendix, - - - - - - - - - -251 

The Life and Services of Stephen Van Rensselaer, - 281 

Historical Sketch, --.---.. 3^3 



INTRODUCTION. 



Beyond a doubt, in this country, " Old things are passed 
away." Difficult it is, even now, to collect and recall the 
events that were of such vital interest to our ancestors of 
two or three hundred years ago, or fully to understand the 
motives that then actuated them. Things of moment seem 
almost forgotten ; and even fifty years' hence, with our 
changes and fluctuations, matters may fare worse with us. 
American names of old families may be almost (as they 
often are now) forgotten. New races, new holders of the 
soil, perhaps a new language, a new theology-, a new form 
of government, a new order of things generally, may have 
become the outgrowth of things that now are. Foreign 
influences, foreign organizations, foreign ideas, may have 
supervened, and the only old thing left, may be the recently 
imported Obelisk, when even the personality of the banished 
Egyptian Khedive Ismail, its donor, will have become as 
traditionary as that of the monarch whose name is chiselled 
on its face. Why should all this be ? Is it due to the hurry 
and confusion of our rapid growth ? Not content with the 
magnificent era of civilization in which we live, we must 
needs press on to more, and aim at perfection, and aspire 
to the foremost place among the nations of the earth, and 
our future must necessarily crowd out our past in this sud- 



Introduction. 

den growth of power. Eve.y decade or so, whether in state 
or in family, should have its historian, for the sake of lat r 
generations. How much of interest in our own cases would 
fhis have afforded us, how many important thu.gs would 
have been told, how many satisfactory solutions to perplex- 
in. dif^culties would have been given, had old manuscr.pts 
a:d documents of all kinds, journals of the actors n. st.rnng 
events and momentous occurrences in the last few centur.es 
been preserved in our own family, for instance For m> 
own part, I have often deplored the want of such .n orma^ 
tion. When young I thought less of it, although then I 
was always div.ng and delving into things beyond my ken 
So now I am more puzzled than ever, to make out the why 
and wherefore of things that I could certainly have settled 
in a manner more satisfactory, to myself at any rate, as 
now understand them. „ 

I prepare these family records solely for " famdy eye 
and for you, my dear children ; so please acqu,t n.e at the 
outset of any idea of making myself fa,non. Th,s . a 
„.ere compilation, remember, of "the trad.t.ons wh.c^. y 
have been taught," and a simple statement of facts, wj.ch 
1 generally copy word for word from h.sto.y, or f am y 
papers, or trustworthy books of reference, or documentary 
evLnce, to give you correct ideas of your ancestors and o 
,he times in which they lived, and of the events ,n . 1 >d 
they took part, which / accept as far as my own behef takes 
^ and as'they are presented to my mn,d, as confirmation 
str ng as proofs can possibly make them. Chance, ad 
ortu^ate cLumstances, have helped me beyond many oth- 
ers of our race in acquiring details, and it has also been 
chiefly for my own occupation and amusement, as rnuch as 
I Lfit ;I, that I have prepared these little sketches, 



Tiiiroduction. 

thus affording also a pretext for writing sans gaic, and with 
a freedom and ease I could not do if I thought any unkind 
comments awaited me. As a relative recently remarked to 
me, " There must have been a great deal of poetry in our 
race if we only could get at it ! " Of course there must 
have been, if poetry means depth of feeling and true senti- 
ment ! Think of the heart-breakings and partings ! Friends 
and country and vast possessions given up, for instance, by 
our " Tory " ancestors at the shortest notice. Obliged to 
leave the hopes and anticipations of a life-time, and, in the 
cases of the lady relatives, all to be borne with seeming 
calmness, for some lately cherished " principle." Parents 
given up and friends estranged, and in some instances with 
the certainty of never again meeting! And yet their grief 
never was known, and they lived and died with seeming 
content in a foreign land, and strangers claimed their abodes 
and possessions in this. These were, with many others, true 
heroines, sacrificing themselves and stifling their feelings for 
those they loved,— " theirs not to question why." 

The pagan maxim, " Know first thyself," is a most im- 
portant one. This information I give you so far as I can, 
tracing back, as remotely as it is possible for me to do, the 
representatives of our families, noting only the male heads 
of the races from which we descend, although a perfect 
avalanche of ancestresses and collaterals are constantly pre- 
sented to me. In this perplexity I waive aside (oh, so 
gently !) those many celebrated women of past generations 
whom I have often heard of, in our family annals. I have 
obtained all possible information about the men of our im- 
mediate ancestry, and have their cases clearly before me ; but 
in most of the histories of the ladies, life is too short to 
spend time in trying to reconcile conflicting opinions. 



IiLtroduction. 

Names, too, are so soon forgotten. I have given the most 
rapid glance at the Huguenot history of the times in which 
our French ancestors lived, to revive your knowledge and 
interest regarding that period of unparalleled cruelty and 
misery, which I have gleaned from Prof. Baird's recent valu- 
able work, from Dr. Hanna, and from Browning's histories, 
etc., etc., but in the most condensed shape, to suit my limited 
space. The Bayard name occurs in these days of persecu- 
tion. The Rev. Nicholas Bayard is mentioned as early as 
1574, and in 1608 a Lazare Bayard, perhaps his son; and 
the Rev. Balthazar Bayard, our immediate ancestor, a Pro- 
fessor in the University of Paris, must have left soon after 
the death of Henry IV. (as we know it was in the reign of 
Louis Xni. when the persecutions recommenced), taking 
with him his fair daughter Judith and his only son Samuel. 
He went to Holland, seeking a calm refuge in a land "where 
he could serve God according to his conscience," but very 
soon died there. A word or two about the pretty conceit 
of a descent from the Chevalier Bayard. There are those 
among us who firmly insist upon such a descent, and who 
have adopted the proud motto given to him. It may be so, 
and this fact, with so many " old things, may have passed 
away." To give them the benefit of the doubt, I leave this 
an open question, and insert a short sketch of his life and 
death.* But Pierre du Terrail, " le chevalier sans peur et 
sans reproche," had a brother, Georges du Terrail, and still a 
third, from whom the descent may have come. Bayard was 
the name of the Scigncnric, which was always retained. 
Comparatively, not many have been entitled to it, and from 
first to last the representatives of it have been few. Nicho- 

* Appendix I. 



Introdzictioii. 

las Bayard, as he signed himself, was the first of note who 
bore it in America. " The proud, irrepressible Nicholas," 
our ancestor, my pride and my delight ! In vain had I 
sought for a connected record of his life. I had no informa- 
tion that was authentic upon which to build, no access to 
old documents which were conclusive ; nor was it until Mrs. 
Martha J. Lamb's superb " History of New York" reached 
me, that I ventured to trace his character and remarkable 
career. My gratitude is accorded to all those who have thus 
far enlightened me in my researches, to say nothing of the 
interest Mrs. Lamb's book excites, throughout its whole com- 
pilation. Well may the Edinburgh Reviezu say, " that any city 
might be proud of such an historian." And how proud am 
I to have been the custodian so long of the private papers 
and documents of our glorious old ancestor, Governor-Gen- 
eral Vetch, of Nova Scotia, who died, aged 93 years, in Lon- 
don, after a most successful and brilliant life, albeit whose 
influence may have made "Tories" of his descendants, the 
more recent representatives of our race. Mention must be 
made of his mother, one of the noble " Ladies of the Cov- 
enant," from whom Samuel Vetch probably inherited his 
sterling qualities. It is a singular coincidence that France 
and Scotland, the two countries in which we are so much in- 
terested, should have produced martyrs in the cause of re- 
ligion at the same time, and that the great national efforts 
around them should have fired our ancestors in both these 
countries at the same era, in their efforts to uphold the Prot- 
estant faith, and risk their lives and worldly considerations 
for righteousness' sake; and that Holland, li!:e a tender 
mother, should have opened her heart and her arms to them 
all at the same period. The history of those times reads 
like a splendid romance, and many of these coincident cir- 



Introduction. 

. -frik-p us all as in the highest degree re- 
nimstances must strike us au db i. & . , , 

: I*. OM HoUand an. young ^«^^^^_ 
;„ „„ own ca»s-oB=r so many connecng l.nks th w ■ 
written books on Holland, whici, are now so =-■> Proc««=i 
„,ll interest you much. Never le, that brave old country, 
::„;:«», l ^.r prlstme glory, be forgotten ; remember 
what we all owe her! ,, 

A lew words about o„, -Tory" »-«'»- ";7 'j 
uotice more a. length when w. teach them The ,ber 
opinion, of Loren.o Sabine-h.mself ot oppos.te v,ews-has 
lained most satisfactorily the reasons that made hem 
' T ties,- How diBeren. are his calm statemems from Utos 
of Judge Jones, for instance. One reason assigned for 

n, delay in the publishing of that extraordinary booh, was^ 
,;": ther were still living ch.ldren of persons attacked and 
it was out of regard for their feelings that the wor .. 
kept in manuscript. There are reasons far more potent and 
u 'answerable to deter the publication o. such a boo Con- 
siderations of State, for instance, may actuate many n, ke p 
L back official truth, but there can be no vahd ground f 
Wtholdiug personal statements from be.ng made^pub 
„„,;, ;, is too late to refute them, -/»»"».'; »"■> ""f;™ 
.gnorant meddler, ,n his pique or conceu, can u, a r yea 
alail whole phalanxes of good names and ---■'-» 
,hose unknown to fame, at his tnsign.ficant °P"°". ?"" 
„en and their noble deeds are thus forgotten, and he 
i„g, often of old families lacerated by some penny-a-ln er, 
Z can bnng disgust and indignat.on "P- ;— 
descendants who may have no means of f.,^.<«g .■« 
rprtness of such false assertions. 

"71 father's proud ancestors, «- "'ebrated Goverao 
Thomas Fitch, of Colonial renown, and the learned Woolseys. 



Introduction. 

I am truly and exultingly proud ; nor is there anything in 
the assertion presumptuous, in my opinion, that we are " sur- 
rounded by a cloud of noble witnesses," not one of whom 
while he lived did not receive honor and reverence, and not 
one who did not die lamented. 

The life of your venerable grandfather, Hon. Stephen 
Van Rensselaer, I add intact, as it was prepared with great 
pains by his intimate friend, Hon. D. D. Barnard, who was 
several years in Congress with him, and could judge of 
him in his exalted position, and give a correct account of 
the " Manor-history." This document of Mr. Barnard's is 
too important and too comprehensive to be among things 
" that are passed away," so I give it entire for your benefit. 
Those "anti-rent" times after your grandfather's death! — 
let thon " pass away " in remembrance. In order to advance 
their political interests, even sometimes the early trusted 
friends of the landholders arrayed themselves on the side of 
the anti-renters, and these holders of large estates, them- 
selves safe in the certainty that their lands were not in 
jeopardy, sacrificed all feelings of honor and the friendships 
of early youth to secure their own appointments to office. 
It was useless to contend. One had only to accept the in- 
evitable ; and, to escape insult and threatened injury, to 
imitate our "Tory" ancestors (for history will sometimes 
repeat itself), go off " beyond the lines " of anti-rentism and 
demagogues, packing up regrets and private feelings, and 
leaving an old inherited estate, the only solace : — 

" To know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong." 

Manursing Island, November, 1882. 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



In the year 1560 the Reformation, which had be- 
come so formidable in Germany and the Netherlands, 
had been gaining increased interest in France, and 
the house of Guise and the mother of Charles IX., 
Catharine de Medici, determined to suppress it. 
Francis II. had died in the same year at an early 
age, having ascended the throne at the age of six- 
teen. He was powerfully influenced by his young 
bride, the beautiful Mary Stuart, who was a daughter 
of James V. of Scotland and Mary of Lorraine. 
Caring little for matters of state, she was naturally 
guided by her relatives, Duke Francis of Guise, and 
Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. In opposition to the 
ambitious house of Guise, which was suddenly lifted 
into power, were the equally ambitious houses of 
Bourbon and Montmorenci. On the side of the 
Protestants (Huguenots) the most eminent were 
Henry of Navarre, Constable Montmorenci, and his 
nephew, Admiral Coligny, and the Prince of Conde. 
The death of Francis II., aged eighteen, was fol- 
lowed by the departure of the young Queen for 
Scotland, when she entered on that course which 

led to her long imprisonment and tragic death. 

3 



Ancestral Skctihcs. 

The second son of Henry II., though less than 
seven years old, was made King under the title of 
Charles IX. His mother, Catharine de Medici, was 
made Regent, until he should attain his majority. 
Familiar with all the dark ways of the Italian Court 
in which she had been educated, compelled for many 
years to yield to the claims of rivals and bide her 
time, she had attained a mastery over herself, 
which now gave her an immense advantage in the 
path she was called to tread. She used either party 
according as it advanced the interests of her sons; 
but soon coming under the influence of the Duke of 
Alva, an open enemy of the Protestants, Prime Min- 
ister of Philip II. of Spain, she soon became the 
decided enemy of the Huguenots. Neither party 
was victor on the field of St. Denis in 1567. In 
the South, the Huguenots were so successful that 
Catharine consented to a treaty of peace which 
lasted scarcely a year. Conde and Coligny being 
threatened with arrest, fled to Rochelle, where they 
were joined by Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, 
and the Protestant chiefs. 

Condc was treacherously shot by the captain of 
the Duke d'Anjou's guard in 1569, and the Hugue- 
nots were discouraged by the loss of their great 
leader ; but at this juncture Jeanne d'Albret roused 
their drooping hearts by presenting to them as their 
chiefs her son Henry, aged only sixteen, and the 
young Prince of Condc. Henry was chosen General- 



The Hiigiiciiols. 

in-Chief, with CoHgny as his adviser ; and many 
battles were fouglit without decisive results to either 
side. 

To put an end to these useless wars, and rid 
France of the rival chiefs who stood in the way oi 
her designs, Catharine de Medici formed a plan 
which ended in an atrocity that stands alone in 
modern history. Coligny had written to the king 
offering to bring about a peace by leading the 
Huguenot nobles into the Netherlands against the 
Duke of Alva, who was waging a relentless war 
against the Protestants of that country; and to throw 
the Huguenots off their guard, a peace was con- 
cluded so favorable to them that the Catholics were 
exasperated, and in 1570 she even proposed a mar- 
riage between the young King of Navarre and 
Marguerite, sister of Charles IX. of France.* 

The proposal of marriage of Henry of Navarre 
with Marguerite of Valois was one to which Jeanne 
d'Albret from the beginning had the strongest aver- 
sion ; and when her objections were overruled, and 
she was forced, by the body of the Huguenot leaders 
and by the advice of her own Council, to entertain 
the project, it was with the utmost difficulty that she 
was dragged from her own capital to go and adjust 
the marriacre articles with Oueen Catharine at Blois. 



* Hanna's " Wars of the Huguenots." Baird's " Rise ol the Hugue- 
nots of Fiance." Browning's " History of the Huguenots." 

5 



A nccstral Ski^tc/ics. 

its being laid down at once that after the marriage 
her son and his wife should reside at the French 
Court ; that Marguerite, wherever she was, should 
have the free exercise of her religion, but that Henry, 
while in France, should be debarred the public exer- 
cise of his. On her part, Jeanne d'Albret as per- 
emptorily insisted that, after the marriage, the Prince 
and his consort should reside at Pau, and that the 
mass should not be celebrated there. " I assure 
you, my son," she writes to the Prince, " that I am 
in great trouble ; for they treat me without mercy, 
and I have need of all the patience in the world. I 
must inform you that Madame Marguerite has given 
me every honor and welcome. She has frankly 
owned to me the agreeable idea she has formed of 
you. With her beauty and her wit, she e.xercises 
great influence with the Queen-mother, the King, 
and his young brothers. Should she embrace our 
faith, I may say it will be the most fortunate event 
in the world, not only for our house, but for the 
entire realm of Trance." 

She soon after writes : "I have no liberty to speak 
even to Madame, but only to the Queen-mother. As 
for Madame, she is beautiful and graceful, but she 
has been educated in the midst of the most vicious 
and corrupt court that can be imagined. I see no 
one here exempt from evil inlluences. I would not 
for the world that you should abide here." 

The two Oueen-mothers could make nothinQ- of 



The Hitgiiciiots. 

tlie matter. It was referred to four Commissioners 
on either side. These also failed. Indignant at the 
delay, the King- broke in, declaring, in one of his im- 
pulsive moods, that it was his royal will and pleasure 
that the marriage should take place without any con- 
ditions whatever. But now a new difficulty arose. 
The Pope refused to grant a dispensation for the 
marriage. The Queen of Navarre hailed the refusal 
as an obstacle thrown by Providence in the way, and 
expressed her intention of retiring from Blois. "No, 
no, my aunt," said the choleric king, " I honor you 
more than the Pope, and I love my sister more than 
I fear his Holiness. I am not a Huguenot, but 
neither am I a fool. If M. le Pape demeans himself 
too absurdly in this affair, I promise you I will take 
Margot by the hand and lead her to be married in 
full ^nr/^e." 

A papal dispensation was at last procured ; the 
general impression being that it was forged for the 
occasion. All impediments being at last removed, 
the Queen of Navarre left Blois for Paris to make 
the necessary preparations for the occasion. It was 
in the midst of these occupations that the fatal mal- 
ady seized her, which in five days carried her to the 
grave. She early intimated her conviction that she 
should not survive. But death was to her neither 
unexpected nor unwelcome. 

" Ought you to weep for me," she said to her 
weeping attendants, " when at length God takes pity 



Ancestral Sketches. 

on me and calls me to the enjoyment of that blessed 
existence for which I have unceasingly prayed ? " 
Her sufferings were intense ; her patience and con- 
fidence in God unbroken. "My pains," she said, 
" are indeed most grievous, but I know that He 
doeth but what is right and good." 

The Queen-mother came to visit her. Not a word 
about the approaching nuptials was spoken ; indeed, 
throughout her whole illness Jeanne never once 
alluded to the event. The 8th of June was the last 
day of her life. She summoned two notaries to her 
bedside. "Tell my son," she said, "that I desire 
him, as the last expression of my heart, to persevere 
in the faith in which he has been brought up, and to 
remember that those who honor God He will honor. 
Tell my daughter that her dying mother besought 
her to depart into Beam, far from the corruption of 
the Court." She desired the 14th, 15th, and i6th 
chapters of St. John to be read to her. Her minis- 
ters Merlin and Espina, at her desire, engaged 
frequently in prayer. A few hours' more suffering, 
and her prayers were heard — the prison-door was 
opened and the eternal rest was reached. 

Marguerite of Valois— so soon to be the daughter- 
in-law of the deceased — tells us in her Memoirs, that 
she and the other ladies of the court went to see the 
body of the Queen of Navarre as it lay in state. It 
shocked them to notice that it lay exposed upon an 
ordinary bed, the curtains drawn back, no darkening 



The Hiigiiciiois. 

of the room, no diin-burning- wax-lights, no crosses, 
no priests, no vases of holy water. Her Hfe, her 
death, kindle in our hearts profound admiration and 
esteem, tier intellectual gifts, her sagacity in coun- 
cil, would rank Jeanne d'Albret among the most gifted 
of our European queens. 

Born and brought up in connection with a court 
in which, as Sully, who knew it so well, says, " Next 
to gallantry, nothing was so cultivated as falsehood "; 
she kept her integrity entire. This was her crown- 
ing excellence — that she was so sincere and devout 
a believer in the truths of our holy religion. It was 
a light that shone from the Heaven she loved to fol- 
low, and ended in a death of Christian hope. 

Two short months after her decease, the marriage 
that Jeanne d'Albret so shrank from occurred, and 
within a week thereafter the massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew took place. All the difficulties about 
young Henry of Navarre's marriage had by this 
time been got over, and the iSth August, 1572, 
fixed as the day of the nuptials. Henry came to 
Paris escorted by the flower of the Huguenot no- 
bility and gentry. Their reception by all parties 
went far to remove the misgivings that many enter- 
tained, especially their reception by the King. 

On the morning of the 2 2d of August, four days 
after the marriage, Coligny was sent for to the 
Louvre. Returning on foot to his hotel, a paper 
was put into his hand, which he was readino as he 

9 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

slowly passed the cloister of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, 
when a shot was fired. Coligny owed his life to a 
sudden movement that he made. But he had not 
wholly escaped the shot of the assassin. Two balls 
took effect ; the one shattering the forefinger of the 
right hand, the other lodging in the left arm. Col- 
igny fell into the arms of one of his attendants, ask- 
ing another to go and tell the King Henry 

of Navarre and the young Prince of Conde came 
straight from the bedside of the Admiral and solic- 
ited permission to leave Paris. The King burst out 
into a tempest of rage ; and thus relieved of their 
own fears, the two Princes returned to tell their 
friends the King's feelings and purposes. 

The wounded man was now lying upon his bed. 
It was found necessary to amputate his linger, and 
make deep incisions in the arm to extract the bullet. 
The operations were painful, the result uncertain. 
But the composure of the sufferer was unruffled. 
" My friends," said he, "why do you weep? I am, 
indeed, sorely wounded, but it is the will of God, and 
I thank Him that He favors me by permitting me to 
suffer for His name." 

Charles hastened to the suffering man and mani- 
fested the strongest and tenderest emotion. " Ah, 
my father," he said, " the wound is yours, but the 
anguish and injury are mine "; and added, " by God's 
death I will take such vengeance as shall never be 
effaced from the memory of man ! " " May God 



Till' Huguenots. 

never be my help it 1 desire vengeance," saiei the 
wounded patriot. "Justice, 1 feel certain, I shall 
obtain. " 

Coligny asked to be permitted to speak with the 
King alone, and believing himself dying, then un- 
burdened his mind. In her impatience, the Queen- 
mother at last interlercd, urider the plea that it would 
be cruel to the Admiral to tax his strength any longer. 

On their way back to the Louvre, she urged the 
King again and again to tell her what Coligny had 
said to him. Provoked at last, Charles turned to 
her, and said, " If you will have it, then, he told me 
that the power ami management of afiairs was too 
much in your hands, and that one day it would be 
injurious to myself and my country; and eJi bien ! 
mon Dicii / I believe what he said was true." 

The suspicion that directed itself against the young 
Duke of Guise as having authorized the attempted 
assassination was well founded. Catharine besought 
the King by every argument to seize the opportunity 
then offered by the presence of so many Huguenots 
in Paris, to order a general execution of them. The 
King refused. She renewed her supplications and 
menaces. Catharine knew her son too well — his 
weakness, his fitfulness, his proneness to sudden 
gusts of passion, to despair. " One man," she said, 
" is- the chief author of all this mischief The Ad- 
miral has been playing the King, using you as his 
tool ; let him be killed. These Huguenots are com- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

ing to-morrow to demand vengeance on the Guises. 
They will defend themselves by throwing the blame 
on your mother and brother, and justly so. Yes ; it 
was we who did it. We struck at the Admiral to 
save the King ; and you must finish the work, or you 
and all of us are lost. Sire," she said, as she made 
a movement to depart, " is it for fear of the Hugue- 
nots that you refuse ? " 

This taunting him with cowardice was the last 
touch of that cruel and cunning hand. She had 
gained her point. The Queen and Anjou took all 
the arrangements.* 

"Anticipating the consent of the King, the Duke 
of Guise had previously sent an order to the Prcvot 
des Marchands to have the gates closed during the 
night, and to hold 2,000 men in readiness to move 
upon the Huguenots when the signal should be 
given by the sounding of the bell of the palace." 
To the guilty plotters that was a sleepless night. It 
was Sunday morning, the 24th August, a day sacred 
in the Roman calendar to the memory of St. Bar- 
tholomew. Torches and blazing lights had been 
burning all night, to render the task easy. At a 
little before dawn, Catharine, with her two elder 
sons, found her way to the portal of the Louvre, 
adjoining the Tennis-court. There, in a chamber 
overlooking the bassecour, they sat down to wait for 

* Hanna. 



TJic Huguenots. 

the beginning of their treacherous enterprise. If we 
may believe Henry of Anjoii, none of them realized 
its full horrors ; but as they quietly watched in that 
hour of stillness, the report of a pistol-shot reached 
their ears. Instantly it wrought a marvelous revul- 
sion in their feelings, and brought uj) vividly to their 
imaginations the results of the terrible flood-gates of 
blood whose deluge they had raised. Hastily they 
send a servant to the Duke of Guise, and counter- 
mand the instructions of the evening, and bid him do 
no injury to the Admiral Coligny. It is too late ! 
The messenger soon returns with the tidings that he 
is already dead, and that the work is about to begin 
in all the rest of the city. 

This news produces a fresh change. With one of 
those fluctuations which are so easy with souls that 
have no firm or established principles, but shift ac- 
cording to the ever-varying tide of apparent interest, 
the mother and her sons return heartily to their 
former purpose. The die is cast ; the deed is half 
done ; let it be fully and boldly consummated ! 

" No sooner had the signal been given than Guise 
galloped to the dwelling of Coligny. The noise had 
awakened the Admiral, who lay with one or two 
faithful attendants, in his suffering condition, in liis 
room. Fearing some popular outbreak, Coligny 
rose, put on his dressing-gown, and asked Merlin, 
his favorite minister, to pray. A servant rushed into 
the room. ' My Lord,' he said, ' it is God who calls 



Ancestral Sketches. 

you. The hall is carried, and we have no means of 
resistance left.' ' 1 have long been prepared to die,' 
said the Admiral, ' but save yourselves, all of you, if 
you can.' " 

Behme, a German, and other retainers of the 
Guises, now broke into the apartment. "Are you 
the Admiral ? " said Behme. " Yes," was the calm 
reply; "but, young man, you should have some 
respect to my gray hairs and infirmities." With a 
savage oath the German plunged his boar-spear into 
his breast. Rapid sword strokes from others fol- 
lowed. Covered with wounds, Coligny sank man- 
gled among their feet. " Behme, have you done it?" 
shouted the Bastard of Angouleme from the court 
below. " It is done, my lord," was the reply. 
" But Guise will not believe it unless he sees him 
with his own eyes. Throw him out of the window." 
The brutal command was instantly obeyed. The 
body was flung down upon the pavement. The two 
lords alighted and bent over it ; the face was be- 
smeared with blood and disfigured ; they took their 
handkerchiefs and wiped the blood away. " 'Tis 
he," they said, and in haste they mounted and 
dashed out through the gate, shouting in triumph as 
they galloped forth, " Courage, soldiers, courage ! 
We have made a good beginning ; now for the 
others." 

At this moment, responding to the first signal 
sound, the bells of all the churches rang out their 
14 



Tlie Hiis:7icnots. 

summons as agreed. Every Imaginable indignity 
was inflicted upon the remains of Admiral Coligny ; 
and the Duke of Guise, having satisfied himself that 
his prey had not this time escaped him, went his way. 

Meantime, in all parts of the city, the massacre 
went on. Neither age nor sex were spared, and the 
marked abodes of the Protestants were full of mur- 
der and blood. The King, it is said, from one of the 
windows of the Louvre, fired upon the fugitives. 

For three days Paris was given over to the rage 
of Guise and his party. The number of killed in 
Paris is differently estimated, at from 2,000 to 10,000, 
and in different parts of the kingdom as many as 
30,000 are supposed to have been slain. 

The Huguenots were roused instead of dismayed 
by the massacre of St. Bartholomew. In Rochelle 
and Sancirre especially, but throughout the Provinces 
everywhere, the direst vengeance was manifest. The 
Duke of Anjou, who commanded the king's forces, 
being called away to assume the crown of Poland, 
the attack lost in rigor, and soon after the peace of 
Rochelle was signed in 1573.* 

" The following year Charles IX. died in great 
anguish and suffering. It is difficult to determine 
the exact proportions in which physical weakness 
and remorse for the past entered as ingredients of 
the malady that cut short his life. He was now a 

* Hanna. 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

man of only twenty-three years ; but his constitution, 
never robust, had gained nothing- in strength. More 
than all, if we may believe the testimony of those 
who were familiar with the young monarch in his last 
days, the mental and moral experience of the last 
eighteen months had left a deep impress on his phys- 
ical system. Charles, with the horrors of .St. Bar- 
tholomew's Day, had lost all the elasticity of youth. 
Remorse for the complicity of the crimes then per- 
petrated, co-operated with the uselessness of the 
attempt and its complete failure to e.xterminate the 
Huguenots, and the consciousness of having incurred 
the detestation and hatred of an impartial posterity. 
Neither by day nor by night could he banish the 
remembrance of the time when blood ran so freely 
in the streets of Paris. It would be carrying histor- 
ical skepticism to the very verge of absurdity to 
reject the whole series of reports that come down to 
us respecting the strange hallucinations of Charles 
during the last months of his life. De Thou, per- 
haps the most candid historian of the period, has 
left the statement on record that, ever since the day 
of St. Bartholomew, Charles, who at no time slept 
well, used frequently to have his rest broken by the 
sudden recollection of its dreadful scenes. To lull 
him to repose, his attendants had no resource but 
singing, the King being passionately fond of music 
and poetry ; and others state that he would awake 
trembling- and groaning, and that his agitation was 



The Ilugiicnots. 

sure to find expression in frightful imprecations and 
words expressive of utter despair. With the grow- 
ing certainty of his approaching death, the mental 
distress of Charles proportionately increased. His 
old Huguenot nurse, to whom he talked without 
reserve, was the witness of the startling contlicts 
through which he was passing in his last hours. 
While sitting near his bedside on one occasion, she 
was suddenly recalled from a revery by the sound of 
the sighs and groans and sobs of the royal patient. 
To her solicitous questions as to the cause of his dis- 
tress, she received the most piteous exclamations, 
interrupted by weeping. ' Ah, my nurse, riiy friend, 
how much blood ! how many murders ! Ah, what 
wicked friends have I had ! My God, have pity upon 
me and pardon me ! I know not where I am, so 
perplexed and agitated have they made me ! What 
will become of me ? What shall I do ? I am lost ; 
I know it full well.' 

" Her words and prayers had little power to dis- 
sipate his extreme despondency. Upon Sorbin, the 
King's confessor, devolved the duty of administering- 
the last rites of religion ; that Sorbin who was accus- 
tomed to speak of the massacre as ' true magnanimity 
and gentleness.' " 

It has been well remarked that, in all the dark 
drama of guilt and retribution upon which the curtain 
was about to fall, no part is more tragical than the 
scene in which the last words preparing the soul for 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

judgment, were spoken by such a confessor as Sorbin, 
to such a penitent as Charles IX. On Sunday, May 
13, 1574, the festival of Pentecost, Charles died, late 
in the afternoon. Almost his last words had been of 
congratulation that he left no son to inherit the 
throne, since he knew very well that France had 
need of a man, and that under a child, both king and 
kingdom were wretched. 

The Protestants had, perhaps, more reason than 
others to regard the singular circumstances of 
Charles's death as strange, if not miraculous. That 
the King, whose guilty acquiescence in the murder- 
ous advice of Catharine, Anjou. and Guise, had del- 
uged his realm in blood, should have himself per- 
ished of a malady that caused blood to exude from 
every pore in his body, was sufficiently singular to 
arrest the attention of the world. The phenomenon 
has been shown beyond all question to have many 
parallels in the annals of medicine, but the coinci- 
dence was so remarkable, that we scarcely wonder 
that, in the eyes of many, it partook of a supernat- 
ural character. Thus perished in his twenty-fourth 
year a prince who, from the evil counsels and ex- 
amples of those about him, was regarded with repro- 
bation by an age by no means pure.* 

Charles was succeeded by his brother Henry III., 
who was assassinated by the monk Jacques Clement, 



■ Baird's " History of the Huguenots. 
iS 



The Hiigjicjiots. 

in 1589. The death of the Queen-mother, Catharine 
de Medici, took place tlie same year. She went to 
visit the Cardinal of Bourbon, who upbraided her with 
her treachery and cruelty. "Ah, Madame," he said, 
as she entered, "you have led us all to be slaugh- 
tered," and his reproaches so wrought upon her 
superstitious nature, that upon her return home she 
was taken ill, and soon after died, January 5, 1589. 
The Duke of Guise had been murdered the month 
before. After the assassination of Henry III., and 
the line of the Kings of Valois had become extinct, 
the way was opened for the house of I>ourbon, the 
head of which was the Protestant Henry of Navarre, 
who was obliged for some four years to maintain a 
severe struggle for the vacant throne ; and several 
candidates were presented by the contending powers, 
and a meeting of the Estates-General of the king 
dom had been summoned to meet in Paris, in January, 
1593, to deliberate as to the selection of a successor 
to the throne. The Papal Legate exerted all his in- 
fluence for filling the throne of F"rance with a Prince 
devoted to the Papacy. A thousand voices kept 
now repeating in Henry's ears, that the only way for 
him at once to save the monarchy and secure for 
himself the throne, and restore peace to his distracted 
kingdom, was by entering into the bosom of the 
Roman Catholic Church. His pride had hitherto 
revolted at the idea of a change of faith. His sense 
of honor revolted equally at the idea of confessing 



A iiccstral Sketches. 

with his Hps what in his heart he did not beHeve. 
J>ut was a crown to be lost, a kingdom ruined, for a 
diflerence about creeds and churches — matters that 
in themselves he had never cared much about ? 

Sully has told us how he presented the matter to 
his royal master. " I can find," he said to Henry, 
" but two ways to any good issue out of your present 
troubles. By the one, you must put forth strong 
resolutions, practice severities and rigor that are 
quite contrary to your humor and inclination ; you 
must pass through a million of difficulties, fatigues, 
pains, perils, and labors ; for you can not come out 
through these affairs but by multitudes of combats, 
taking of cities, great victories, and a great shedding 
of blood. Instead of all this, by the other way — 
which is for you to accommodate yourself in the mat- 
ter of religion to the will of the majority of your 
subjects— you escape all these pains and difficulties." 

After three months wasted in idle debate, Henry 
at last yielded, and announced to the Estates-Gen- 
eral that he had resolved to conform to the Roman 
Catholic religion. Preparatory to his public act of 
abjuration, he invited five Catholic Bishops to hold a 
private conference with him at St. Denis. Seven 
hours were spent in going over all the topics in dis- 
pute between the Calvinists and Romanists. At last 
tiie weary hours were over. " You have not satis- 
fied me," were the King's parting words, " You have 
not satisfied me as much as I had desired, but I put 



The Hiigncuots. 

my soul into your hands to-day, and do, I pray you, 
have a care ; for the way in which you now make me 
enter, I leave only by death. That I protest and 
swear." 

Tears stootl in his eyes as he spoke these parting- 
words. The Bishops declared themselves satisfied. 
At eight o'clock the next Sunday morning- Henry 
took the oath of abjuration, the two principles that 
had been at war with each other — the monarchical 
and the Catholic — were at peace again. The bond 
between Church and State that had been severed, 
was removed. Despite the obstinacy of the Pope in 
his refusal to grant absolution, Henry resolved to 
proceed with his consecration, and escorted with all 
the pomp of a solemn procession, he was accom- 
panied to Chartres, and never on any like occasion 
had there been a more magnificent pageant than that 
which graced the day (27th February, 1594,) when, 
within the Cathedral, the King, magnificently attired, 
sat down upon the throne that had been erected be- 
fore the altar, and upon that brow, which Pope Sixtus 
V. had declared was especially made for it, the crown 
of Charlemagne was set. Pive years afterward, he 
secured to the Huguenots their civil rights by the 
"Edict of Nantes," which gave them equal claims 
with the Catholics to all offices and dignities. 

The affairs of the Protestants during the remainder 
of the brilliant reign of Henry IV. present no events 
of importance. There was no fear of violence ; per- 



A nccstra I Sketches. 

sedition had given place to controversy ; and with 
the exception of a certain degree of acrimony wherein 
the Jesuits took part, their theological disputes passed 
oft quietly. For all, in fact, that this great Prince 
did for France during his reign to develop its re- 
sources and increase its glory, are referred to in the 
histories of the times. The 20th of May, 16 10, was 
fixed as the day on which Henry was to place him- 
self at the head of an Alliance, which he had planned 
and perfected, against the house of Austria, and of 
striking a blow at its ambition and intolerance from 
which it might never be able to recover. 

Four French armies, numbering t 00,000, were to 
be launched against the great enemy of European 
liberty, but on the 14th of May, the great Henry fell 
under the knife of a fanatic. That Ravaillac was 
the mere instrument of some party, appears be- 
yond doubt. At the time, public feeling was une- 
quivocally against the Jesuits. Although everything 
tended to facilitate the elucidation of this event, not 
the least effort was made to render public the investi- 
gations which the parliament of 16 10 had consigned 
to secrecy. They l)uried him amid a nation's tears. 
And France might truly weep over his grave. For 
if ever she had a sovereign to whom her well-being 
was dear — if ever she had a monarch upon her throne 
that was every inch a b^-enchman — if ever king of 
hers incarnated that love of gayety and glory for 
which as a nation she is so distinguished, it was 



The Hiigitcnots. 

Henry IV. He was succeeded by his weak son, 
Louis XIII., who, from the first was a bigot, and 
soon fell under the influence of his confessor and the 
control of his minister Richelieu. 

The reign of Louis XIII. was disturbed by insur- 
rections and riots, and hatred of the Huguenots and 
intrigues to destroy them. In 1624 Richelieu became 
prime minister. As a prince of the Church of Rome, 
he was necessarily opposed to the Huguenots ; j-et 
state policy appears to have been his chief motive 
and guide. Three projects engaged his whole atten- 
tion. To elevate the regal authority by destroying 
the remains of feudal independence ; to raise the im- 
portance of France by lowering the pride of Austria ; 
and to terminate all domestic differences by suppress- 
ing the few liberties still enjoyed by the Huguenots. 
Pretexts of every kind were used to cover his designs, 
and no one dared to oppose the cardinal, so great 
was his power and authority. 

The inhabitants of Rochelle openly rebelled against 
Louis, being quite confident that the instigation and 
promises of Charles I., their treacherous English ally, 
would soon be followed by assistance. "Assure the 
Rochellese that I will not abandon them," was his 
promise, and when the Duke of Buckingham, under 
whose command the expedition set out, the hopes of 
the Protestants were at their highest, Charles as- 
suring them that he would risk the whole force of his 
kingdom, rather than suffer Rochelle to fall. Louis 

23 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

put I\ichelieu in command of the French army as his 
lieutenant. The carchnal sent a trumpeter exhorting 
the people to submit, without result, then prepared a 
grand attack. A violent storm prevented the English 
from entering the port, and drove the besieged to 
despair, the flotilla soon returning to England. The 
Huguenots accused Buckingham of wantonly deceiv- 
ing them. The cardinal gave the King's promise 
that the lives of the garrison and the inhabitants 
should be spared, if the town surrendered within three 
days. The hollow promises of the English monarch 
had exasperated the citizens, and the assassination of 
the Duke of Buckingham by Felton, and the difficul- 
ty of access to Rochelle on the part of the English 
fleet, and their hopelessness of relief, induced the in- 
habitants to listen to the proposals of Richelieu, and 
the gates of the city were thrown open, after a siege 
of nearly fifteen months, during which period the in- 
habitants were reduced from above twenty-seven 
thousand to five thousand. 

The disappointment of the vanquished was greatly 
soothed by their deliverance from starvation, an abun- 
dant supply of provisions being liberally distributed 
by the cardinal. He inaugurated the conquest of the 
Protestant town by celebrating mass with great pomp 
on the festival of All Saints. 

P>om the pacification of 1629 to 1661, when Louis 
XIV. assumed the direction of affairs, the general 
history of the Huguenots presents few important in- 



The Ihigncjiots. 

cidents. Freedom of conscience was promised them, 
and Richelieu (who died in 1642) and his successor, 
Mazarin, did not disturb them. Louis XIII. soon 
followed his minister to the grave. After making 
every allowance for his weakness, his name and 
character are very far from commanding the respect 
of posterity. Mazarin's government appears to have 
formed a direct contrast with that of his predecessor. 
The predominant feeling against Richelieu was ha- 
tred ; against Mazarin it was contempt. His beset- 
ting weakness was a love of money, but he never 
sought his revenge by means of the scaffold. Dur- 
ing the troubles of the Fronde, the cardinal's ene- 
mies endeavored in vain to enrol the Huguenots 
among their partisans, and he never complained of 

them. 

" The Huguenots at the death of Charles the Ninth, 
and during the two successive reigns, had stood be- 
fore the world a well-defined body, that had out- 
grown the feebleness of infancy, and had entided it- 
self to consideration and respect. But in a century 
matters had changed. Louis XIV. was at the sum- 
mit of his power. Arches were erected in his honor 
at the gates of St. Martin and St. Denis in Paris, and 
the authorities everywhere conferred upon him the 
title of ' Le Grand Monarque,' and he was recognized 
generally as, more than any other sovereign, the ar- 
biter of the desdnies of Europe. He sought all means 
for o-reater aggrandizement, and regardless of the 



Ancestral Sketches. 

most sacred treaties, interpreted every vague expres- 
sion he met with in them to his own use. His rest- 
less, grasping nature led him to look into the treaties 
of Westphalia, etc., and on some slight, he seized 
Strasburg in 1681, and alarmed the different nations 
of Europe by his demands, while his navy, two years 
later, swept the Mediterranean of the Algerine pirates, 
and bombarded not only Algiers, but Genoa. A quar- 
rel with the Pope also sprang up, and other overbear- 
ing acts in time of peace had produced a general feel- 
ing of distrust toward him which led to another co- 
alition against him, called the League of Augsburg. 
This was an alliance of the chief powers of Europe, 
of whom Louis XIV., by his aggressions, had become 
the common enemy. The Protestant members of the 
League, especially, felt themselves justified in joining 
it, because the year before (1685) he had revoked the 
' Edict of Nantes,' which had given them security, and 
possession of their property and estates. His minis- 
ter, Colbert, with his wise counsels, had died, and 
strengthened by the acquiescence and advice of the 
Catholic priests who surrounded him, and their assur- 
ance that his sins could be e.xpiated by the destruc- 
tion of this hostile sect, to which was added the influ- 
ence of Mme. de Maintenon, whom he had secretly 
married in his old age, the order for the ' Revocation 
of the Edict ' was given on October 22, 168=^." 

The changes it proposed made a profound sensa- 
tion, not only in France, but throughout Europe. 
26 



The Hitgitcnots. 

The number of Huguenots who were ordered to 
leave the kingdom in fifteen days, thus driven sud- 
denly out of France by this act, has been estimated 
at 500,000. They fled to Holland, Switzerland, Ger- 
many, and England. 

As I transcribe, an article from the Contemporary 
Review, January, 1881, comes before me. I copy: 
" A nobler testimony to religious liberty was never 
borne, than this which the Protestants of France are 
now bearing." 

A most dramatic illustration of the changed relation 
of Protestantism to the Government was that on No- 
vember 2, 1879, when, the meeting place at Versailles 
being under repairs, Protestant worship was held by 
permission of the authorities in a hall of the Palace 
of Louis XIV., at Versailles. The place chosen was 
under the hall of the " Oiel-de-Bceuf," not far from 
the chamber where, in 1715, the " Grand Monarque" 
expired. It is a vast room, decorated by Costelle 
with paintings of the royal residences, and through 
the crowded congregation passed the President of 
the Consistory of Paris and the pastor of Versailles, 
each bearing a copy of the Holy .Scriptures, and with 
them the officers of this Protestant congregation. 

A young French poet, who was among the wor- 
shipers, utters the sentiments which the occasion could 
not but inspire : " Not without a glow of honest pride, 
we passed before the colossal statue of Louis XIV. 
stretching out his hand as if to delend his palace from 



Ancestral Sketches. 

the intrusion of modern and heretical ideas. And 
when we heard the Bible and the Huguenot liturgy 
read in that building in which, just overhead, Mme. 
de Maintenon had induced that King to sign the 
' Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,' well-nigh two 
hundred years ago, we were thrilled with emotion, 
and blessed God from our inmost hearts. At this 
solemn moment our thoughts brought back the very 
dead." 

What a conflict was that, and what times were those 
that followed it ! Children torn from their mothers' 
arms, Protestant martyrs sentenced as galley slaves, 
dying for the faith of Christ, pastors bleeding on the 
wheel or dangling from the gibbet. Such is the his- 
tory of that Reformation in France. 

y\nd now, behold how it fares with us to-day ! 1 
have no love for those prophets of evil who take 
pleasure in saying that the Latin races are doomed 
to irremediable decay. No ! this is not to be. Into 
this generous and genial mass of French society you 
have only to infuse new principles, and you shall see 
coming forth again from their ashes those Hugue- 
nots of the sixteenth century, of whom Chevalier 
Bunsen said: "They are the most glorious imper- 
sonation of manhood to be found in history." 



THE BAYARDS OF NEW 
YORK. 



THE BAYARDS OF NEW YORK, AND THE 
EARLY HISTORY OF THE CITY. 



"Among the many Protestants who were driven 
from France by the policy of Cardinal Richelieu un- 
der Louis XIII., was the Rev. Balthazar Bayard. 
This eminent Huguenot, a Professor in the Protest- 
ant University of Paris, sacrificed his property, and 
leaving his home and severing long-cherished ties in 
his native land, had exiled himself to Holland, that 
he might worship God ' according to the dictates 
of his conscience.' Two others of the name had 
previously fled to the Netherlands for refuge, after 
the horrors of St. Bartholomew's Day ; an early Rev. 
Nicholas Bayard in 1580, and whose signature ap- 
pears attached to the articles of the Walloon Synod. 
Tradition reports that he had been a professor of 
theology in Paris, and also connects him with the 
family represented by the famous knight ' sans peur 
et sans reproche.' 

"In the next generation (1608) Lazare Bayard, 
perhaps a son of Nicholas, was enrolled among the 



Ancestral Sketches. 

Walloon clergy of Holland.* It was a few years 
later that the Rev. Balthazar Bayard left France ac ■ 
companied by his son Samuel, and his danghter Ju- 
dith ; both were young at the time, and they settled 
at Alphen. Rev. Balthazar soon died, nor is any 
record left of his life in Holland, tlis daugjiter Ju- 
dith married Petrus Stuyvesant, the newly appointed 
Governor of New Amsterdam in America, and his 
son Samuel married Anna Stuyvesant, the sister of 
the Governor. A blended interest thus united the 
two families, and Samuel Bayard, dying before many 
years in Holland, Mrs. Bayard {nee Stuyvesant) and 
Mrs. Stuyvesant {iii'e Bayard) accompanied Gov. 
Stuyvesant to America, reaching their new home 
May 1 1, 1647. 

"The career of Governor Stuyvesant, the fourth 
and last Dutch Governor, is deeply interesting from 
its symmetry and manliness. He was the son of a 
clergyman in Friesland, and had early evinced a 
taste for military life. He was a proud, scholarly 
man, and bore himself with the air of a prince." 
He came to Manliattan in the employ of a mercan- 
tile corporation ; but he soon became intensely inter- 
ested in the city of his adoption, and thenceforward to 
his death he was thoroughly American, and the va- 
ried fruits of his labors are among the most valued 
legacies of the seventeenth century. He had mar- 
ried the daugrhter of a celebrated Paris divine, who 



Appendice 2. 

32 



The Bayards of Nciv York. 

had taken refuge in Holland from religious persecu- 
tion. His administration was longer and more per- 
plexing than that of any other Governor." 

Mrs. Stuyvesant was very beautiful, spoke both 
the French and the Dutch languages with ease, and 
in the course of a few years acquired a good knowl- 
edge of English. She had a sweet voice and a rare 
tas'te for music, which had been cultivated under the 
best instructors, was fond of dress, and followed the 
French fashions, displaying considerable artistic skill 
in the perfection and style of her attire. She was very 
gentle and retiring in her manners, but was possessed 
of great firmness of character. Mrs. Bayard, the 
Governor's sister, was less attractive in person ; she 
was tall, commanding, and imperious. Her educa- 
tion was of a high order, considering the age in 
which she lived, and she had great tact and capacity 
for business. She brought a tutor across the ocean 
for her three young sons, Balthazar, Nicholas, and 
Petrus ; but after he had been dismissed as unworthy 
of his position, she taught her children herself, in al- 
most every branch of practical education. Of her 
abilities in that direction we may judge from the fact 
that her son Nicholas, a mere youth, was appointed, 
in 1664, to the clerkship of the Common Council; an 
office of which the records were required to be kept in 
both Dutch and English. It will not be amiss per- 
haps, in this connection, to quote from the historian 
Brodhead a few words in regard to the women of 
3 



Ancestral Skctclics. 

Holland : " The purity of morals and decorum of man- 
ners, for which the Dutch have ever been conspicu- 
ous, may be mostly attributed to the happy influence 
of the women, who mingled in all the active affairs of 
life, and were consulted with deferential respect. 
Through all their toils and struggles, the calm forti- 
tude of the men of Holland was nobly encouraged 
and sustained by the earnest and undaunted spirit of 
their mothers and wives. It was well for Stuyve- 
sant that he had such a wife and sister near him, for 
he was entering upon a series of trials which would 
test his discretion to the utmost." 

The three Bayard brothers took divergent paths 
as soon as they reached manhood. Petrus, the sec- 
ond, lived in New Jersey. It has been said — v^^ith 
how much of truth I do not undertake to say — that 
he joined a religious sect and alienated his Dutch re- 
lations. The founder of the Society of Labardists was 
Jean De Labardie, who had made many converts to 
his doctrines among persons of learning. His public 
declarations that he was inspired, and especially di- 
rected by Christ, roused the clergy, and caused him 
and his followers to be driven to Westphalia, and af- 
terward to Denmark. He died in 1674 in Friesland. 
The Labardist emissaries sent out to America, travel- 
ed through New Jersey and the Delaware Bay region, 
and persuaded many persons (among whom were 
Petrus Bayard and Ephraim Hermans) to join them, 
and accompany them to Europe. 

34 



The Bayards of A^czo York. 

Balthazar Bayard lived in New York, and owned 
the land extending to Pearl and Rose Streets, includ 
ing the now called Vandewater Street, in 1683. He 
left three daughters (two young sons died in extreme 
youth), Annientje Verplanck, "Judy," and Anna Ma- 
ria, wife of Augustus Jay. Will dated 1699. Exec- 
utrix his wife, " to whom all his Estate. ' 



NICHOLAS BAYARD 



was a mere boy in years and personal appearance m 
1664 ; but thanks to his accomplished mother, he 
had all the flexibility and self-possession of a veteran. 
He was industrious and intelligent in the details of 
finance and city government. He was equally fluent 
in Dutch, English, and Erench ; the records of the 
Common Council he was obliged to keep in Dutch 
and English. He soon became the private secretary 
of his uncle. Gov. Stuyvesant, to whom he always 
devoted himself " He had none of the forwardness 
common to youth, was courteously deferential to his 
elders, and although of a joyous nature, proud and 
reticent." " He is never in the way nor out of the 
way," said Willett, a trait of character which may 
possibly account for his extraordinary career in after 
life. " He was, however, excessively /r/tWt^z/.f in some 
personal tastes, and when otT duty, devoted himself 
to dancing, horse- racing, and other diversions which 
greatly distressed his worthy friends." Oh, the Ir- 
repressible Nicholas ! At this time he had developed 



Ancestral Sketches. 

a remarkable talent for mathematics, and was appoint- 
ed Surveyor of the Province, and was noted, besides, 
for his varied attainments and for his ready wit. About 
this period, Mrs. Bayard, Gov. Stuyvesant's sister, 
married Nicholas Verlet, a merchant from Holland, 
who came out to try his fortunes in this new country, 
bringing with him his fair sister, the famed Judith 
Verlet, our beautiful " Witch." 

Dates here (1665) somewhat perplex me; but as 
far as I can make out, 1 must introduce this family 
heroine into our history now. It is contrary to all 
rule, I know, to marry one's hero at the commence- 
ment of his career, but the " Irrepressible Nicholas" 
is not to be judged by common rule, so I transcribe 
from documentary evidence the following reports : 

"Judith Verlet was born in Amsterdam, Holland, 
and came with her brother Nicholas to America, and 
in 1662, when residing with her family in Hartford, 
Ct., was imprisoned there, on a 'pretended accusa- 
tion of iciteliei-y! ' In that year, Ann, the daughter 
of John Cole, who lived near a Dutch family, was 
seized in a strange manner with I'its, wherein her 
Tongue was improved by a Demon,' etc., 'who con- 
founded her language so that she made Utterances 
in DutcJi, of which Language she knew Nothing.' 
It was in this case that the accusation of ' witchery ' 
was made against Judith Verlet. Through the inter- 
position of Gov' Stuyvcsant, ' she escaped her peril,' 
and it is reported ' that as soon as the suspected 
3'' 



The Bayar'ds of New York. 

Witches were executed or fled, Mrs. Cole's daughter 
was restored to her health.' Governor Stuyvesant 
sent the Deputy Governor and General Court at 
Hartford, the following letter in her behalf: 'Hon- 
ored and worl/iy Sirs: By this occasion of my 
brother-in-law (Nicholas V^erlet) being necessitated 
to make a second voyage to ayd his ciistressed 
sister, Judith Verlet, imprisoned, as we are in- 
formed, upon pretended accusation of Witchery, 
we really believe, and, out of her well known 
education, life, conversation, and profession of faith, 
we dare assure, that she is innocent of such a 
crimen, and wherefore, 1 doubt not he will now, 
as formerly, hnde your honour's favor, and ayde 
for the innocent.^" — Gerard's Old Stadi-Hiiys, Oc- 
tober, 1662. 

Oh, those merry old times ! when our " Witch " 
in her fun and frolic probably so distinguished her- 
self! Those old Puritanic times ! when to blink one's 
eyes on Sunday was deemed a sin ! It is well, there- 
fore, that, as in this instance, "old things are passed 
away." The narrative continues, after probably the 
grave old Governor had remitted her sentence, with 
a severe reprimand. "In happier hour," says the 
not always prosaic Mr. Savage, "Judith Verlet's 
power of fascination (witchery) was sufficient to en- 
sure her marriage with Nicholas Bayard, one of the 
patrician families of the neighboring province of New 
York. She married May 23, 1666, in New- York, 



Aiiccstral Skctclics. 

Nicholas, son of Samuel Bayard and Anna Stuyve- 
sant, born at Alphen, in Holland, who accompanied 
his widowed mother and uncle, Governor Petrus 
Stuyvesant, to New-Netherland in May, 1647." 

And now, having given a suitable bride to the " Irre- 
pressible Nicholas," I return to the more sober realities 
of his life. " He was a man, take him for all in all." 
And his motto should have been, " I dare do all that 
may become a man." He knew no fear; he was full 
of manly pride, generous, chivalrous, frank, and bold 
in the declaration of his opinion ; he never deceived 
or dreaded any one, and if ever " Le Chevalier sans 
peur et sans reprochc," had a fitting representative 
on earth, it was he. A recent extract from Carlyle 
(blending the new with the old) is, in every sense ap- 
plicable to him. It was of Cavaignac that it w^as writ- 
ten, "A fine Bayard soul, with figure to correspond, 
a man full of seriousness and with genial gaiety with- 
al ; of really fine faculties, and of a politeness which 
was curiously elaborated with punctiliousness, which 
yet sprang everywhere from frank nature. A Re- 
publican to the bone, but a Bayard "; etc., and any 
study of Nicholas Bayard will convince any one how 
truly he resembled his great prototype, in many re- 
spects, and his remarkable career will in its fearless- 
ness, carry out the strong resemblance to the Cheva- 
lier Bayard, often attributed to Nicholas.* 



* Appendice i. 

38 



The Bayards of Nnv York. 

We return to the times in which he lived, in an ex- 
tract from Mrs. Lamb's History: " Early in June, in 
spite of treaties and at the risk of war, Charles II. and 
his ministers had resolved to seize New-Netherland ; 
and an expedition against the Dutch in America was 
at once ordered, but kept a profound secret, lest the 
States-General should send a squadron to aid their 
unprotected subjects. The Duke of York, who had 
been appointed Lord High Admiral of the British 
dominions, was to manage the enterprise. He bor- 
rowed from the King four war vessels, on which he 
embarked four hundred and fifty well-trained soldiers, 
under the command of Col. Nicolls, the groom of his 
bedchamber, who was also commissioned as Governor 
of the yet unpossessed territory. The first intimation 
New Amsterdam received of these hostile designs, 
was through a merchant of Lyme, who was sending 
vessels to Boston and New Amsterdam, who com- 
municated it to Thomas W'illett, who hastened to 
Gov. Stuyvesant, and, within an hour, the burgomas- 
ters and schepens were in close council with the brave 
old soldier devisir.g plans for fortifying the city. Some 
vessels on the point of sailing for Curagoa were coun- 
termanded, and agents were sent hurriedly to New 
Haven to buy provisions. Men were stationed at 
Westchester and Milford, to act as spies, and an- 
nounce the approach of the enemy, who were ex- 
pected by way of the Sound. A loan of money was 
obtained from Jeremlas Van Rensselaer, and a quan- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

tity of powder was secured from New Anistel. At 
this critical moment, when every liour was more pre- 
cious than gold, a dispatch from the Amsterdam 
Chamber, to Stiiyvesant, declared that no apprehen- 
sion from England need be felt — that the King had 
only sent some frigates to introduce Episcopacy into 
New England. Confidence was thus restored, and 
the CuraCjOa vessels were permitted to depart. Stuy- 
vesant had left the city to enter upon the work of 
reconciling the Indians in the vicinity, when an ex- 
press followed him to say that the English squadron 
was actually on its way from Boston to New Amster- 
dam. He hurried home, arriving only three days be- 
fore the English banners floated over the bay, just 
below the Narrows. Three weeks had been lost in 
false security ! The city was ill prepared to stand a 
siege ; the Fort, and the Wall at Wall Street, how- 
ever strong a defense against the Indians, would 
avail positively nothing against a civilized foe ; and 
there was the exposure on the two rivers ! 

" Stuyvesant regarded the situation with dismay. 
The English were in full possession of the harbor. 
He sent to the English commander four commission- 
ers demanding the object of his coming, and why he 
remained so long in the harbor without giving clue 
notice? NicoUs replied that he had come to reduce 
the country to the obedience of the King of England, 
whose commission he displayed. The next day, he 

sent his commissioners, who were received with a 
40 



The Bayards of Ncio Vor/c. 

formal salute from the guns of the battery. The 
interview was ceremonious in the extreme. They 
bore from NicoUs to Stuyvesant a formal summons 
to surrender the province of New Netherlands, with 
all its towns, forts, etc., and promising to confirm his 
estate, life, and liberty to all who should submit with- 
out opposition. Nicolls had omitted to sign the 
paper, and thus delay was obtained. Men worked 
all day Sunday on the fortifications, and the officers 
of the Government were in close council. On Mon- 
day, a meeting of the citizens was called at the City 
Hall, and a loud clamor at once arose for the papers, 
when Stuyvesant came to the City Hall and at- 
tempted to explain the impossibility of surrender 
under any circumstances, the extreme displeasure it 
would occasion Holland, the painful responsibility 
that was resting upon himself, etc., etc. ; but in the 
end produced the desired document, which had been 
sent anew, signed. The anxiety and excitement 
were everywhere apparent. 

" On Tuesday, Governor Winthrop, of Connecti- 
cut, who had joined the fleet at the request of the 
English foe, visited the city under a flag of truce. 
Stuyvesant met the deputation with stately politeness. 
The mission was to present a carefully-written letter 
from Nicolls. and Governor Winthrop, who had been 
summoned by Nicolls for council, was instructed to 
use his utmost endeavor to persuade the Dutch Gov- 
ernor into a peaceful submission. Stuyvesant was 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

iron-hearted, and declined the advice of Winthrop, 
who, on taking his leave, handed the following letter 
addressed to himself, to Stuyvesant, who read it 
aloud to the gentlemen of his council and the burgo- 
masters present : 

"'Mr. Winthrop: As to those particulars you 
spake to me, I do assure you that if the Manhadoes 
be delivered up to his Majest)-, I shall not hinder ; 
but any people from the Netherlands may freely 
come and plant there or thereabouts ; and such 
vessels of their owne may freely come thither, and 
any of them may as freely return home in vessels of 
their owne country ; and this, and much more, is 
contained in the privilege of his Majesty's English 
subjects ; and thus much you may, by what means 
you please, assure the Governor from, sir, 

" 'Your very affectionate servant, 

"'Richard Nicolls.' 

" The burgomasters asked permission to read this 
letter to the citizens. Stuyvesant pronounced such 
a course injudicious, and refused consent. High 
words ensued on both sides, and Stuyvesant in a fit 
of passionate indignation tore the letter in pieces. 
The councilors quitted the fort. The news was 
received with lowering brows. Suddenly the work 
on the Palisades stopped, and three of the principal 
citizens, not belonging to the Government, appeared 
before the Governor peremptorily demanding a copy 



The Bayards of ATcio York. 

of the letter.' The fragments were shown to them. 
No reasoning" would satisfy them. Stiiyvesant hur- 
ried to the City Hall, and tried in vain to quiet the 
rising multitude. Some cursed the Governor, some 
cursed the Compan)', but all united in a demand for 
the letter. ' It would be as idle to attempt to defend 
the city against so many, as to gape over an oven.' 
The Governor argrued in vain. 'The letter!' 'the 
letter ! ' was the only reply. Nicholas Bayard, Stuy- 
vesant's private secretary, having gathered the scat- 
tered scraps, made a copy of the mutilated docu- 
ment, which was given to the burgomasters. Nicolls 
declined all discussion. The delegates returned sadly 
to New Amsterdam. Meanwhile, Governor Stuy- 
vesant had been preparing an answer to the sum- 
mons of Nicolls. He pictured in earnest language 
the consequences of any violation of the articles of 
peace so solemnly agreed upon by Charles and the 
States-General, and warned the English commander 
against aggression. He sent four of his ablest ad- 
visers to argue the matter with Nicolls. He would 
listen to nothing. He must and would take the 
place, and if the terms he offered were not accepted, 
he should proceed to attack. ' On Thursday, I will 
speak with you at the Manhattans,' he said with dig- 
nity. ' Friends will be welcome if they come in a 
friendly manner,' replied one of the delegates. ' I 
shall come with my ships and soldiers, and he will be 
a bold messenger indeed who will dare to come on 

43 



Ancestral Skclclics. 

board and dare to solicit terms,' was the rejoinder. 
' \Vhat, then, is to be done ? ' was asked. ' Hoist 
the white flag of peace at the fort, and I may take 
something into consideration.' 

" The delegates returned sadly to New Amsterdam. 
Nicolls, seeing that Stuyvesant was not disposed to 
surrender, made arrangements for storming the city. 
On the morning of September 5th, Nicolls came up 
under full sail, and anchored between the fort and 
Governor's Island. The crisis had come. New 
Amsterdam, with its population of fifteen hundred 
souls, was ' encircled round about,' without any 
means of deliverance. Stuyvesant stood in one of 
the angles of the fort, near where the gunner held a 
burning match awaiting the order to fire at the ap- 
proaching vessels. He had been expostulated with 
by one and another, who saw only infatuation and 
ruin in resisting a foe with such extraordinary ad- 
vantage in point of numbers ; but to all he had an- 
swered with emphasis, ' I must act in obedience to 
orders.' ' It is madness,' said Dominie Megopolen- 
sis, laying his hand lovingly upon the Governor's 
shoulder. ' Do you not see that there is no help for 
us either to the north or to the south, to the east or 
to the west ? What will our twenty guns do in the 
face of the si.xty - two which are pointed against 
us on yonder frigate ? Pray, do not be the first to 
shed blood.' 

"Just then a paper was brought to Stuyvesant, 



The Bayards of Nciv y^ork. 

signed by ninety-three of the principal citizens, includ- 
ing; the burgomasters and schepens, and his own son 
Balthazar, urging with manly arguments, that he 
would not doom the city to ashes and spill innocent 
blood, as it was evident the sacrifice could avail noth- 
ing in the end. He read the appeal with white lips, 
and with unspeakable sorrow expressed in every 
feature. I lis only remark was, ' I had rather be car- 
ried to my grave.' Four minutes later the white flag 
waved over the fort. Nicolls was proclaimed Gover- 
nor of the province, and New Amsterdam was hence- 
forth to be known as ' New York,' in compliment to 
the Duke of York. Within two hours afterward the 
fort was to be vacated, the military marching out 
with all the honors of war. 

" On Sunday afternoon, after the second sermon, 
the conciliatory terms by which New Amsterdam was 
surrendered — terms perhaps the most favorable ever 
granted by a conqueror — were explained to the anx- 
ious community. On Monday morning, Stuyvesant 
and his council affixed their names to the articles of 
capitulation, and exchanged them with Nicolls. All 
things being ready, the garrison marched out of the 
fort, carrying their arms, with drums beating and colors 
flying, and embarked on a vessel about to set sail for 
Holland. Colonel Nicolls and Sir Robert Carr 
formed their companies into six columns, and enter- 
ed the town as the Dutch garrison departed. The 
city magistrates were assembled in the council cham- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

ber, and proclaimed Nicolls Governor of the province. 
The English flag was raised over the fort, which was 
now to be called Fort James, and New Amsterdam 
was henceforth to be known as New York. 

"The conquest of the English has been widely 
stigmatized as an act of peculiar national baseness. 
It was matured in secret, and accomplished with de- 
liberate deceit toward a friendly government. It pro- 
voked a war which disgraced the reign of Charles II. ; 
a war in which Dutch fleets not only swept the Channel, 
but entered the Thames, burned the warehouses and 
dock-yards at Chatham, and maddened and terrified the 
citizens of London with the roar of their cannon. And 
yet, unjustifiable as it surely was, the temptations fur- 
nished by the circumstances of the case may perhaps 
be cited as a sort of palliation of the deed. The West 
India Company and the States-General, had always un- 
dervalued New Netherland ; it was their neglect of it 
which had been the most potent stimulus to English 
ambition ; and finally, the event itself could not have 
been avoided by the Dutch Government unless all 
their previous policy had been reversed, and their ti- 
tle planted upon a more tolerable basis. 

" Stuyvesant was mortified and humiliated beyond 

expression. This solitary heroism, and his loyalty, 

unshaken to the last, did not protect him from the 

severe censure of his superiors. I le was summoned 

to Holland to render an account of his administration, 

and detained there many months. The soulless cor- 
46 



The Bayards of New York. 

poration was dying by inches. The loss of its prov- 
ince had been its death-blow. But it had sufficient 
vitality left to make a desperate effort to shift the 
responsibility of its misfortunes upon the head ot its 
faithful servant, notwithstanding abundant proof that, 
year after year, and by almost every ship which 
crossed the ocean, he had warned the self-sufficient 
company of the impossibility of holding the province 
against any hostile attack, without the means to im- 
prove its weak and dangerous condition. The peace 
of Breda put an end to the controversy, and Stuyve- 
sant, whose property and interests were all in New 
York, returned and took up his abode as a private 
citizen. 

"Governor Nicolls was the son of a lawyer of the 
Middle Temple. He was well educated and accus- 
tomed to all the refinements of the higher European 
circles, was warmly attached to the royal cause, and 
had shared its fortunes and spent much time as an 
exile in Holland. He was familiar with the Dutch 
literature, and spoke the Dutch and French lan- 
guages as well as he spoke his own. He was 
about forty years of age; a little above the me- 
dium height, of fine stately presence, with a fair, 
open face, a pleasant, magnetic gray eye somewhat 
deeply set, and hair slightly curled at the ends. He 
laughed a little at the fort, with its feint of strength, 
and its quaint, double-roofed church within, but found 
the Governor's house very comfortably furnished and 



Ancestral Sketches. 

quite attractive for a new country. Its promise was 
uncertain, but he wrote to King James, that it was 
undoubtedly the best of all his towns. His affability 
and genial nature won the citizens from the start, at 
least such as were so fortunate as to come in personal 
contact with him. On the day after the surrender, 
the burgomasters and schepens met and transacted 
their ordinary business as if nothing had happened. 
They indicated their good-will to the administration 
through a letter in which appeared the following pas- 
sage : ' Nicolls is a wise and intelligent Governor, 
under whose wings we hope to bloom and grow like 
the cedar on Lebanon.' 

" Mr. and Mrs. Van Brugh were the first of the 
Dutch residents who gave a dinner party in honor of 
the new English Governor. On the Sunday follow- 
ing the surrender, the English Episcopal service was 
celebrated for the first time in New York, by the 
chaplain of the English forces; it having been agreed 
in the capitulation that the Dutch should enjoy all their 
religious liberties and retain their own church edifice, 
and it was very cordially arranged that the service of 
the Church of England should take place in the same 
sanctuary after the close of the usual morning worship. 

"The old, stubborn, intensely practical Dutch spirit 
was firmly planted in this soil ; English inflexibility, 
sagacity, and inxigorating life had also taken root; 
and French industry, refinement, and vivacity flour- 
ished, if possible, the most luxuriantly of the three. 



The Bayards of Ncxo York. 

The chief impulse of the Huguenot movement, which 
had begun in France, both in the capital and the uni- 
versity, was coeval with the revival of letters. Hence, 
those who fled into voluntary exile were generally 
of the cultivated and wealthy classes. They trans- 
planted to New York an influence of education and 
graceful accomplishments, and gave a certain chival- 
ric tone to the new society. Nicolls was quick to see 
the advantage of influencing as many of the Dutch 
families as possible to remain in their present homes. 
He resolved to ask the principal Dutch citizens to 
take the customary oath and become British subjects. 
The subject was in agitation for several days. Fi- 
nally, Nicolls said in writing, that the ' articles of sur- 
render ' were ' not in the least broken or intended to 
be broken, by any words or expressions in the said 
oath.' This statement proved satisfactory, and in a 
few days over two hundred and fifty residents of the 
city and adjacent country took the oath of allegiance 
to Charles II. and the Duke of York. Among these 
was Stuyvesant himself, Van Brugh, Yan Cortlandt, 
Van Rensselaer, Beekman, and the two Dutch Domi- 
nies. Van Rensselaer had been directed to bring his 
title papers respecting Rensselaerwyck to Nicolls for 
inspection. This was subsequently done, and a new 
patent was issued to the Patroon by the Duke. 
Nicholas Bayard, Stuyvesant's nephew, was appoint- 
ed Secretary of the Common Council. Nicolls took 
no steps to increase the number of schools, or indeed 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

to promote education in any form. It was sufficient 
for him, he argued, to see that the Ciiristian ministers 
were supported. 

" But a storm was gathering- across the water 
wliich was to involve New York in fresh difficulties. 
When Charles II. and his ministers settled with con- 
venient logic the question of seizing and appropriat- 
ing a Dutch province, it was at the risk of war. The 
States-General had no suspicion of the treachery in 
progress, until the whole facts were revealed. Charles 
himself laughed heartily when the news reached him 
of the complete success of Nicolls, and remarked to 
Sir George Carteret, ' I shall have a pleasant time 
with the Dutch ambassador when he comes.' The 
West India Company raved ; and applied to the city 
of Amsterdam and to the States-General for ships of 
war and soldiers to send at once for the reconquest 
of the province. The ambassador from the Dutch 
to Charles denounced the whole thing as a palpable in- 
fraction of honor and of the treaty between the English 
and Dutch nations. Charles replied haughtily. It 
was soon apparent to the Dutch statesmen, through 
the insolent manner of Downing, as well as the tone 
of Clarendon's correspondence, that no redress from 
England need be anticipated. De Witt peremptorily 
replied, ' New Netherland must be restored.' Secret 
orders were therefore given ' to reduce the English 
possessions in that region, and inflict, by way of re- 
prisal, as much damage and injury as possible, either 



The Bayards of Nciv York. 

at Barbadoes, New Netherland, Newfoundland, or 
other islands or places under English obedience.' 
Downing secured information in regard to these se- 
cret orders through the aid of skillful spies, who took 
keys from De Witt's pocket while he was asleep, and 
extracted papers from his desk, which were returned 
within an hour. He immediately communicated the 
fact to his own government. 

"The Dutch, who lived by commerce, were no 
longer backward about fighting. Every city offered 
men and money to the government. The East India 
Company suspended their herring and whale fish- 
eries, and ecjuipped twenty war-vessels. The West 
India Company were authorized to attack, conquer, 
and destroy the English everywhere, both in and out 
of Europe, on land and water. Fourteen millions of 
guilders were voted for the expenses of the war. 

" On the 4th of March, 1667, Charles issued a for- 
mal declaration of war against the United Provinces. 
The House of Commons at once voted two and one- 
half millions of pounds sterling ; ' a sum,' says Ma- 
caulay, 'exceeding that which had supported the fleets 
and armies of Cromwell at the time when his power 
was the terror of all the world.' 

" The Duke of York took command of the English 
fleet, and sent orders to Nicolls to put his province 
of New York in a posture of defense against the 
Dutch. Charles wrote to Nicolls himself, telling him 
to take all possible care to avoid a surprise. Nicolls 



Ancestral Sketches. 

was painfully embarrassed. He had received no sup- 
plies from England — the fort was weak, he had no 
war-vessels, and the soldiers were in need of the 
commonest necessaries. But he was as loyal as he 
was brave. It was very evident to him that he 
should be able to command very little assistance from 
a community which would welcome the restoration 
of Dutch authority. He sent an elaborate statement 
of New York affairs to the king by Cartwright, who, 
quite discouraged with his unprofitable labors in 
Boston, and in great physical torture with the gout, 
sailed in June for London. He was captured by a 
Dutch privateer, who, having taken away all his 
papers, landed him in Spain. ' It is for your health, 
sir,' said the humorous sea-captain, as they parted 
company ; ' the mild southern climate always cures 
gout.' 

"A pestilence broke out in London surpassing in 
horror any that had visited the British Isles for three 
centuries. The appalled court fled, from Whitehall. 
The great city was desolated. Within five months 
more than one hundred thousand lives were suddenly 
ended. The awful silence of the streets was only 
broken by the nightly sound of the dead-cart. A 
terrible conflagration also completed England's mis- 
eries for 1666. Five-sixths of the proud city of Lon- 
don were laid in ashes. The summer had been the 
driest known for years. The citizens who had been 
driven away by the plague were returning. On the 



The Bayards of Nciu York. 

2d of September, a fire broke out which lasted four 
days and nights, and consumed every house, church, 
and hall in ninety parishes between the Tower and 
Temple Bar. 

"The year 1667 opened gloomily. Calamity fol- 
lowed calamity. All schemes of a defensive war were 
abandoned. Presently it appeared that even a de- 
fensive war was too much for the Administration. 

" The States-General haughtily dictated the terms 
of a treaty, which was soon after signed at Breda. 
Singularly enough they surrendered New Nether- 
land, the very occasion and prize of this long conten- 
tion. Charles, who had grown weary of Clarendon's 
imposing ways, deprived him of the ' Great Seal ' at 
the very moment when he was affixing it to the proc- 
lamation of the Peace of Breda. ' I must assuage 
the anger of Parliament,' was his excuse. 

" Innocent New York, the cause of all these dis- 
turbances, was becoming more interesting abroad 
than within her own borders. Improvements were 
at a dead stand. Her merchants were hampered in all 
their operations by sea and land. Her vessels were 
seized by Dutch and French privateers, almost with- 
in sight of her harbor. Her trade was suspended. 
Nicolls was compelled to use his own private means 
for the public good. There was little direct inter- 
course with England. Necessaries of all kinds grew 
very scarce. 

" When, after a long captivity, Cartwright reached 

53 



Ancestral Sketches. 

London, and explained the condition of affairs in the 
colonies, the Duke sent to New York two ships laden 
with supplies. He wrote to Nicolls a letter full of 
commendation. The King did the same, inclosing a 
present of two hundred pounds. At the same time, 
he ordered a strict guard kept against the French in 
Canada. The meagre help came at a time when 
Nicolls was well-nigh disheartened. 

" In the summer of 1665 a terrible war had broken 
out between two Indian tribes living at the North. 
Two Dutch farmers had been killed. Two Indians 
were arrested for the murder, one of whom was 
hanged, and the other sent in chains to Fort James. 
The Long Island inhabitants chafed under what they 
styled ' arbitrary power,' and gave Nicolls more trouble 
than all the Dutch population together. In New York 
and in the Dutch towns, the payments for new pa- 
tents were made easy. Jeremias Van Rensselaer 
created quite an excitement by claiming Albany as a 
part of Rensselaervvyck. Nicolls wrote to him that 
the cjuestion must be settled by the Duke of York, 
but added, ' Do not grasp at too much authority ; if 
you imagine there is pleasure in titles of government, 
I wish that I could serve your appetite, for I have 
found only trouble.' 

"A complication of difficulties between the French 
and Indians, and between the Jesuits, the Indians, 
and the New \'ork colonists to the North, kept 
Nicolls in continual anxiety ; the New England colo- 



The Bayards of Nctv York. 

nies were not in a condition to render aid, and the 
prospect was as dismal as could well be imagined. 
He was so oppressed with financial embarrassments 
that he wrote to both the Duke and the King, beg- 
ging to be relieved from a government ' which had 
drawn from his purse every dollar he possessed.' 
'Such is our strait,' he wrote, 'that not one soldier 
to this day, since I brought them out from England, 
has been in a pair of sheets or upon any sort of bed 
but canvas and straw.' A response came tardily. 
The Duke consented to the return of Nicolls ; but 
it was not until after the Peace of Breda, and the 
news of the treaty came with the same ship which 
brought the recall of the weary Governor. Peace 
was a charmed word in Dutch as well as English 
ears ; politics, feuds, bickerings were forgotten, and 
intense relief succeeded. Presendy came the official 
announcement of Nicolls' departure, and there was 
universal sorrow. He had made himself exceedingly 
popular. The leading Dutch residents were, if pos- 
sible, more attached to him than his English col- 
leagues ; but all were united in one deep feeling of 
regret that he must leave the country. 

" Colonel Richard Lovelace was appointed to suc- 
ceed Nicolls in 1668. He was one of the gentlemen 
of that focus of political intrigue and fashionable 
gayety, the Court of Charles H. He was a hand- 
some, agreeable, polished man of the world — upright, 
generous, and amiable, but he lacked energy, and 



Ancestral Sketches. 

was of a narrow type of mind, and possessed very 
little of that suhtlc saoacitv which brings conflicting 
elements into one liarmonious whole. The Duke 
wrote requesting Nicolls to remain a few months 
longer, that Lovelace might have an opportunity to 
study affairs. 

"The first time the latter presided in the Admi- 
ralty Court, Nicolls sat by his side. The two Gover- 
nors journeyed together to various parts of the prov- 
ince. They spent one week in Albany, \\'(t\e feted by 
Van Rensselaer at his manor-house, and smoked the 
pipe of peace with the Mohawk sachems ; stopped two 
days in Esopus, and were the guests of William Beek- 
aan ; looked into military matters, and ' spent an 
evening of great hilarity' with Thomas Chambers at 
his manor ; traveled over Long Island on horseback, 
stopping at all the principal tt)wns. They went to 
Hartford, and were entertained by Governor Win- 
throp in courtly style, and spent one day with the 
dignitaries of New Haven. Lovelace wrote in a 
private letter to the King : ' 1 find some of these 
people have the breeding of courts, and 1 can not 
conceive how such is acquired.' 

"On the 28th August, Nicolls took his final fare- 
well, escorted to the vessel in which he was to em- 
bark for Europe, by the largest procession of the 
military and citizens whicii had yet been seen on 
Manhattan Island. The most sincere sorrow was 
manifested on all sides at his departure. He had 



Tlic Bayards of Nciv York. 

ruled with such discretion and moderation, that even 
they who had disHked his orders, had come to love 
the man who had taken so much pains to avoid the 
unnecessary wounding of their prejudices. 

" Ludicrous stories are told of Puritan rigor — how 
in New England no one was permitted to make beer 
on Saturday lest it should ' work ' on Sunday ; and 
how in Connecticut no man was allowed to kiss his 
wife on the Sabbath. But, with all due allowance 
for humorous exaggeration, it was practically the same 
in New York. The Sabbath was consecrated to an 
entire cessation from worldly lal)or. With a musical 
peal of the old Dutch bell, the houses poured forth 
their occupants. Since no power ever decreed ad- 
versely to the dressing of one's best on that day, it 
must have been a bright and impressive scene. The 
gentlemen of the day wore long-waisted coats, the 
skirts reaching almost to the ankles, with large silver 
buttons sparkling down the entire front ; a velvet 
waistcoat trimmed with silver lace peeped out, and 
the shirt front was elaborately embroidered ; breeches 
were of silver cloth or different colored silks, and the 
shoe-buckles were of silver. Ladies wore jaunty 
jackets of silk, velvet, or cloth over different colored 
skirts ; sleeves turned up, with large white cuffs. 
Not only were handsome chains for the neck much 
in vogue, but girdle-chains of gold and silver were 
common, to which were suspended costly -bound 
Bibles and hymn-books for church use. The hair 

57 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

was dressed high, and was frizzed about the face, and 
the bonnet was very pretty. The mayor and alder- 
men, in a dress that was peculiarly conspicuous, oc- 
cupied in the church a pew by themselves. Lovelace, 
in the afternoon, attended the Episcopal service, and 
occupied the Governor's pew, which had been elabo- 
rately fitted up by NicoUs. Another pew was set 
apart for the Governor's Council. The Duke of York 
sympathized with every religion which dissented from 
the Church of England. He was by conviction a 
Roman Catholic — a fact which was not then without 
its value, and actually placed him before the world as 
the friend of religious toleration. He permitted the 
Lutherans in New York to call a minister from Ger- 
many. He went first to Albany, but unbecoming 
complaints having been made against him, Lovelace 
suspended him from the pulpit, giving him, at the 
same time, permission to preach in New York. His 
name was Jacobus Fabricus ; and it was soon found 
that, in addition to a dictatorial and quarrelsome tem- 
per, he was constantly abusing his wife. She spent 
one whole winter in the garret of her house, suffering 
all the while from fever and ague. She finally com- 
plained to the Government, and petitioned that her 
husband be ordered to give up the keys, and not pre- 
sume to enter the house any more. The court granted 
her request. He defied legal authority ; and six 
months later went to his wife's house in an angry and 
turbulent manner, pushed a woman over her spinning- 



The Bayards of Ncxv York. 

wheel, and seveielv injuring- her ; a band of soldiers 
was summoned to arrest him, and the clamor was so 
loud against him that the Governor was obliged once 
more to interfere, and he was removed from the pul- 
pit, and permission given him to ' proceed to the 
Delaware.' 

"About this period (1672) Governor Stuyvesant 
died. He had marvelous intellectual power, great 
subtlety of discernment, and vet a peculiar turn of 
mind which rendered him less successful in politics 
than many who had not half his abilitv. He was a 
countryman, and when he died at the age of eighty 
was active in all his movements, and interested him 
self in church affairs and in citv improvements, was 
social and companionable, and frequently dined his 
English successor at his country seat, and rendered 
himself very dear to his family and friends. He was 
interred in the family vault in the church upon his 
farm, and one hunilred and thirtv years afterward St. 
Mark's Church was erected upon the same site, and 
the vault was repaired and enlarged. Upon the outer 
wall of St. Mark's Church is the original tablet. 

" In a temporarv absence of Lovelace from the city, 
an express followed him to announce the appearance of 
a supposed Dutch squadron off Sandv Hook. He 
hurried back to the city, and finding no enemy, was 
inclined to ridicule the false alarm. However, he 
summoned one hundred and more enlisted men. 

The weeks went ijuietlv by, there was a general 

59 



Ancestral Sketches. 

training, and eighty soldiers left in Fort James. 
Lovelace had set out to visit Gov. Winthrop on busi- 
ness of importance, but again had been gone but a 
few days when several ships were discovered lying 
near the present quarantine ground. There were 
Dutch citizens who visited the hostile fleet and re- 
vealed the weakness of the defenses. The Dutch 
militia spiked the guns in sight of the new battery in 
front of the City Hall. A deputation was sent to the 
intruders to demand 'why the fleet had come in such 
a manner to disturb his majesty's subjects in this 
place.' A boat passed them on the way with a mes- 
senger from the two admirals, Evertsen and Binckes, 
bearing an order for the surrender of New York. 
' We have come to take the place, which is our own, 
and our own we will have,' they said. The deputation 
sent brought back word that the enemy were too 
strong to be withstood, and that the Dutch flag must 
be hoisted within half an hour, or they would fire 
upon the fort. Meanwhile the fleet had moved 
nearer, so that the foremost shij)s were within mus- 
ket-shot. The messenger was sent back to ask for a 
cessation of hostilities until the next morning, that 
the advice of the Mayor and aldermen migiit be ob- 
tained. The commanders would grant but one more 
half hour, ' and the glass was turned up.' At the end 
of that time the ships fired a broadside into the fort, 
killing and wounding several of the garrison, and the 
fire was returned. At the same moment six hundred 

men were seen landing just above the ' Governor's 
60 



The Bayards of yWa' York. 

orchard,' on the river shore, back of the present 
Trinity Church, and they 'paraded in the old grave- 
yard adjoining. The officer in command at the fort 
asked [lermission to march out with the honors of 
war. It was about seven o'clock on a summer even- 
ing. Captain Colve, who was in command of the 
Dutch, readily acquiesced. lie formed his men in a 
line in front of the fort and waited, while Manning, 
the commandant, marched through the gates at the 
head of the garrison, with colors flying and drums 
beating. They grounded their arms, anti were com- 
mitted to prison in the churcii, while the Dutch qui- 
etly took possession of the citadel. The three-colored 
ensign of the Dutch Republic rose to its old place on 
the flag-staff, and New York became once more New 
Netherlantl ! 

"A province was annexed to the Dutch Republic ; 
but the effete West India Company had nothing 
whatever to do with the transaction. The old cor- 
poration had gone into liquidation soon after the con- 
quest of the place in 1664, and the new company had 
taken no interest in its recapture. It had greatly in- 
creased in value under the English ; the population 
had more than doubled ; and now the direct author- 
ity of the States-General and the Prince of Orange 
was hailed by all who had a drop of Dutch blood in 
their veins, and by many others, with unbounded en- 
thusiasm. The city was called N'czo Orange, and the 
fort was called IViiiiaiii Hciidrick." ''' 



Mrs. Lamb's " History of New York." 



NICHOLAS BAYARD AND 
HIS TIMES. 



NICHOLAS BAYARD AND IIlS TIMES. 



The two Dutch admirals, Evcrtsen and Binckcs, 
were obliged to assume the responsibility of govern- 
ing their conquest until directions came from the 
Hague. Never was the Dutch Republic more ably 
represented than by the cool, honest, sagacious Ad- 
miral Evertsen. He had with him in the New York 
harbor near twenty English prizes and a large number 
of prisoners captured in \'irginia and elsewhere, and 
it was a delicate matter to select from his inferior of- 
ficers a governor for New Amsterdam. Captain An- 
thony Colve was the best fitted among them for such 
command. He was accordingly appointed by the ad- 
mirals, and a commission was issued for him similar 
in phraseology to those issued by the crown of En- 
o-land. He may have possessed qualifications for 
rulership, but he was vain, gluttonous, and excessive- 
ly given to wine. He put on princely airs, spent 
money extravagantly, and in the latter respect outdid 
any of the governors who had preceded him. The 
admirals evidently distrusted him, and sent for a few 
of the prominent Dutch citizens, and advised with 
them as to proper persons for official trusts. Niche- 



A iiccstral SkctcJics. 

las Bayard acted as registrar of their proceedings, and 
was finally made Secretary of the province. 

The old form of government was restored, and the 
commonalty convoked to elect a new board of burgo- 
masters and schepens. The admirals issued a proc- 
lamation, confiscating all the property and debts be- 
longing to the Kings of France and England, and re- 
quiring every person to report such property to the 
appointed Secretary Bayard. There were so many En- 
glish prisoners that the situation became embarrassing, 
and three ships were sent to convey them to Europe. 

The superseded Governor Lovelace soon after sailed 
for Europe in Admiral Binckes' vessel. He wrote to 
Winthrop, " Are you curious to know the extent of my 
losses? It was my all whichever I had been collecting; 
too greate to misse in this wilderness." When Gov^- 
ernor Colve was at last installed in office, he set up a 
coach drawn by three horses, and everything assumed 
a military air. Cornelis Steenwyck was his first coun- 
selor, Secretary Bayard was efficient in all business 
matters, and on important occasions the burgomasters 
and schepens of the city were consulted. When ques- 
tions arose about the treatment of foreigners or their 
property, Captain Kuyff and Captain Epsteyn, of the 
Dutch infantry, were added as a council of war. The 
insecure condition of the fort was improved, the 
Lutheran Church, which had just been built "without 
the gate," was demolished, and the Lutherans allowed 
to build another on the site of what was afterward 

66 



Nic/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

Grace Church. As it was generally supposed that 
the Duke would attempt the recapture of the prov- 
ince, precautions were taken on all sides to prevent a 
surprise. Tiut affairs in Europe had taken a different 
turn very shortly after these events, and a treaty was 
signed and peace soon after proclaimed at London 
and the Hague, on the 9th February, 1674. 

Thus England escaped a disastrous war, and the 
Dutch were rendered less apprehensive of the En- 
glish. The news reached New Nethcrland early in 
June. Governor Colve received instructions from 
the States-General to restore the province to any per- 
son whom the King of England should depute to 
receive it. 

Sir Edmund Andros was the newly appointed En- 
glish Governor. 1 1 is commission authorized him to 
take possession of " New York " in the name of 
Charles IL He arrived in October. He was about 
thirty-seven years of age, well informed, educated in 
history, languages, and art, and as events subsequent- 
ly showed, possessed of great capacity for statesman- 
ship. His wife accompanied him. 

On the 9th of November Governor Coh^e assembled 
at the old City Hall all the officers, civil or military, 
and aljsolved them in a short speech from their oaths 
of allegiance to the States-General and the Prince of 
Orange, and announced that on the morrow he would 
surrender the Fort. One of the most friendly inci- 
dents of the occasion occurred when Ex-Go\^ernor 

67 



A nccstral Sketches. 

Colve sent his coach and three horses, with a formal 
flattering message, as a gift to Governor Andros. 
Andros landed with much ceremony, and the final 
transfer of the province took place, and the city of 
Manhattan Island hccame once more, and for all the 
future, up to the present time, New York. 

A quiet Sabbath followed. Dominie Van Nieu- 
wenhuysen was assisted in the morning service, at the 
old Dutch church in the fort, by Rev. Nicolais Van 
Rensselaer, a younger son of the Patroon, and one of 
the late arrivals by the Diamond. He was an or- 
dained clergyman, and had been recommended by 
James to fill one of the Dutch churches in New York 
or iVlbany, whenever a vacancy should occur. An- 
dros was a member of the Church of England, and 
attended service in the afternoon in the same sanc- 
tuary, as had been the custom of his predecessors. 
" There were two Ministers or Dominies, as they w^ere 
called, the one a I^utheran or High Dutch, the other 
a Calvinist or Low Dutchman, who behaved them- 
selves so uncharitably as if Luther and Calvin had 
be([ueathed and entailed their virulent and bigoted 
spirits to them and their heirs forever." The Calvinist 
was Dominie Nieuwenhuysen, who died in 1681, and 
the Lutheran was Dominie Fra/.ius. They were both 
men of vast scholastic acquirements. Dominic Nieu- 
wenhuysen was an excellent pastor, notwithstanding 
that outside of his own Hock he sometimes exhibited 
more zeal than charity. He took exception to the 

68 



A^ic ho/as Bayani and His Times. 

clerical conduct of Dominie Van Rensselaer, whom An- 
dros sent to Albany as colleague to Dominie Schaats, 
and openly declared that a minister ordained by a 
bishop in England as Dominie \"an Rensselaer had 
been, was not qualified to administer the sacrament in 
the Reformed Dutch Church ; but at the trial of the 
latter before the Governor, Nieuwenhuysen was 
obliged to admit the validity of the English Episco- 
pal ordination. 

Fresh ecclesiastical troubles broke out the next 
year, when Jacob Leisler, one of the deacons of the 
Calvinistic Dominie, accused Van Rensselaer of 
"false preaching," and uttering " tlubious words." 
Van Rensselaer was arrested and brought to New 
York for trial, but was acquitted, and Deacon Leisler 
and Jacob Alilbornc were ordered to pay all costs and 
fines for "giving the first occasion of difference." 

Dominie Van Rensselaer had, it is said, " prophe- 
sied to Charles II. when the latter was an exile at 
Brussels, that he would be restored to the English 
throne. When that event occurred, the Dominie ac- 
companied the Dutch ambassador to London, as 
chaplain to the embassy, and the King, remembering 
his prediction, gave him a gold snuff-box with his 
portrait on the lid, which is still iMCserved by the 
family in Albany." (If such a present was ever made, 
not even the reputed recipient himself ever saw it ; 
or it may be one of the things that "are passed 

away," and been forgotten.) 

69 



Ancestral Sketches. 

Complaints from every side began to pour in upon 
the Duke concerning Andros. It was insinuated 
that lie favored Dutchmen in trade, made laws hurt- 
ful to the English, detained ships for private reasons, 
or traded himself in the names of others, and Andros 
was ordered to report immediately in person in Lon- 
don. The latter, though surprised, obeyed the sum- 
mons, committing the government to Lieutenant- 
Governor Brockholls, and leaving Lady Andros in 
New York. He sailed January 6, 1681. Andros 
was unquestionably diligent and sagacious ; and cer- 
tain it is, that, when he laid down the staff of office, 
anarciiy followed almost immediately. James had 
fixed u[)on Thomas Dongan as the future Governor 
of New York, and Lady Andros soon joined her 
husband in England. 

Dongan was easy and affable, and personally mag- 
netic, and the current of popular feeling set strongly 
in his favor. He was about fifty years of age, and a 
bachelor, a Roman Catholic, with broad, intelligent 
views on all subjects of general interest. He was, 
moreover, an accomplished politician. Perhaps we do 
not often enough retlect how effectively the spirit of 
one man, or of a few men, may decide the destiny of 
a State. Cool tempers and wise heads possess great 
power to give direction to the common mind. This 
was a rcmarkal)le period. New \"ork was passing 
through a crisis. Dongan was essentially a man for 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

the times ; he has justly been classed " among the 
best of our Colonial Governors." New York 
had a season of apparent content. Addresses of 
gratitude were sent to the Duke ; the integrity, jus- 
tice, equit}', and prudence of Dongan were emphasized, 
and loyalty was expressed in the strongest terms. 
Taxes were paid cheerfully, and city improvements 
began anew. 

At that very moment England was in a political 
convulsion. A plot to murder the King and Duke 
had been discovered. The details had all been ar- 
ranged at a small farm near London, from which it 
was called the " Rye House Plot." There were trait- 
ors among them who divulged all, and more than all. 
The whole Whig party were, to a certain extent, im- 
plicated. Men of high rank were condemned and 
executed — among them Lord William Russell and 
Algernon Sidney. Politicians, in great numbers, were 
sent to the gallows, although only a few desperate 
men were concerned, under the delusion that to kill 
the scions of royalty was the shortest way to vindicate 
the Protestant religion and the liberties of England. 
But the new year (16S5) opened auspiciousl)^ New 
York was in a fair, promising condition. 

In gorgeous halls across the water, her sovereign, 
a man of fifty, gay almost to frivolity, healthy and 
robust, surrounded by ladies whose charms were the 

boast and whose vices were the disgrace of the age, 

71 



Ancestral SkckJics. 

and by gambling" courtiers, winning and losing mount- 
ains of gold in a night, and looking forward to a long 
life of case and pleasure, when the decree went forth, 
and Charles II. died suddenly. Scarcely had he risen 
from his bed on I'ebruary 2d, than the gentlemen of 
rank assembled as usual to chat with him, noticed a 
strange look upon his face. An instant later he uttered 
a loud cry and fell insensible into the arms of Lord 
Bruce. He recovered his senses for a time, yet lay 
in a condition of extreme danger. The prelates, who 
were presently summoned, exhorted him to prepare 
for death which was imminent ; but he listened to 
them in silence. In his rarely serious moments he 
was at heart a Roman Catholic. The duke knew 
there was not a moment to waste in preliminaries. 
He commanded every one to stand back, and bend- 
ing over the dying king said something in a whisper, 
to which Charles answered audibly, " Ves, yes, with 
all my heart." " Shall I bring a priest ?" asked James. 
" Do, i)rother, for God's sake do, and lose no time ; 
but no, you will get into trouble." " If it costs me 
my life, I will bring a priest!" exclaimed the duke, 
with great feeling. There was a Benedictine monk 
at Whitehall, named Huddleston, who had, after the 
battle of Worcester, risked his life to save that of the 
king, and had ever since been a privileged person. 
He was willing to put his life in peril again for the 
king he loved, but he was so illiterate tiiat he had to 
72 



NicJiolas Bayard and His Times. 

have instructions as to what was proper to say on 
such a momentous occasion. He was brought by a 
confidential servant up the back stairway. The duke 
requested all but three noblemen whom he dared 
trust, to withdraw. Then the back-door was opened, 
and the monk, whose sacred vestments were con- 
cealed by a cloak, entered. When he was announced, 
Charles faintly answered, " He is welcome." Huddle- 
ston went through his part Ijetter than was expected, 
pronounced the absolution, and administered extreme 
unction. He asked if Charles wished to receive the 
Lord's Supper. " Surely, if I am not unworthy," 
was the quick reply. The monk retreated. The 
door was opened, and once more the wondering 
courtiers were admitted. The king retained his 
faculties during the entire night, conversing at inter- 
vals. Once he apologized for being so long dying, 
and hoped those who had stood about him so long 
would excuse it. Soon after daylight his speech 
failed, and about noon he passed away. 

James was proclaimed King. Usage required a 
speech, and the new monarch expressed a few words 
of touching sorrow for the loss just sustained, and 
promised that he would imitate the singular lenity 
which had distinguished the late reign ; that he 
should with his life defend the rights and liberties of 
his people ; and knowing the Church of England to 
be eminently loyal, should especially care for, sup- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

port, and defend it. He would probably have kept 
his word, had it not involved complicated relation- 
ships which his mind could not grasp. At a later 
period he stated that his unpremeditated expressions 
touching the Church of England were too strong, 
and had been made without due consideration. 

In 1685 Nicholas Bayard was the Mayor of New 
York, and also one of Dongan's Council. Stephanus 
Van Cortlandt and James Graham were appointed to 
manage the King's revenue. Dongan wrote to James 
asking the privilege of naming a collector from among 
the old residents, " because," said he, " those who are 
sent over for the purpose expect to run suddenly into 
great estate." When James found breathing space 
amid the putting down of the various rebellions 
which menaced his throne, he gave attention to his 
American affairs. 

The year 1685 was distinguished by the granting 
of the " Dongan Charter" to the city of New York. 
It was drafted by Mayor Nicholas Bayard and Re- 
corder James Graham, and was one of the most 
liberal ever bestowed u|)on a colonial citv. The 
Dongan Charter confirmed all former " rights and 
privileges," and is recited at large in the charter of 
1730. The instrument was the basis of a plan of gov- 
ernment for a great city. It was cautiously worded, 
and shows that the minds in which it originated were 
possessed of a broad and enlightened sense of the 



Nic/ioias Bayard and His Times. 

sanctity of coiporale and private riglits, and by no 
means disposed to neglect provident guards for tiieu" 

security. 

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes this year 
caused a simultaneous cry of grief and rage through 
the whole of Protestant Europe. New York caught 
the alarm, and the rumor was started that James had 
communicated to Cu)vernor Dongan an intention to 
establish the Roman C'atholic religion there. The 
Catholic officers of the Government were watched 
with jealous eves, and every movement of the Gov- 
ernor was criticised. A gentleman from London 
arrived about this time, and was hospitably enter- 
tained by Governor Dongan. The two appeared 
together in the streets, and dined with Frederick 
Philipse and Nicholas Bayard. It was absurdly 
reported that the strange guest was a Catholic priest 
in disguise, sent over on private business by the King; 
and the rumor, fostered by that kindly entertainment 
always furnished in such cases by small communities, 
speedily assumed the importance of an acknowledged 

fact. 

Meanwhile James publicly expressed disapproval, 
and was really at heart distressed by the outrages 
which Louis XIV. was visiting upon the Huguenots. 
Nothing could exceed the fury of the inquisitors. 
And yet thousands upon thousands succeeded m 
escaping ; the best blood in France was on the wing ; 



Ancestral SkcUhcs. 

persons of great fame in war, in letters, in the arts, 
and in the sciences, dressed like the humblest peas- 
ants, wandered from place to place, engaging in the 
most menial occupations, until they could devise some 
method of crossing the frontiers. Many reached 
England, and James assisted them from his own pri- 
vate purse. But trouble was gathering for James in 
every respect. lie had resolved to unite his colonies 
under one vice-regal government, and decreed that all 
his American possessions, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, should be consolidated into one great polit- 
ical whole to be called New England. Either Don- 
gan or Sir Edmund Andros must be displaced. An- 
dros had the larger experience, and excelled in 
executive talent. On the other hand, Dongan was 
as good a soldier as Andros, with more independence 
of character. It was thought best to retain Andros, 
and Dongan was offered the command of a regiment, 
with the rank of major-general in the British army, 
but he saw fit to decline the honor, and retired to his 
farm. 

Andros hastened to assume almost imperial com- 
mand over the province he had left seven years be- 
fore. He arrived in New York with quite an army 
of attendants on August ii, 1688, and was received 
by Colonel Nicholas Bayard's regiment of foot and a 
troop of horse. The councillors Dongan, Brock- 
holls, Philipse, Bayard, and Van Cortlandt were 

sworn into the new administration. 
76 



N'icholas Bayard and His Times. 

James was, at this moment, trying to change the 
religion of his kingdom. He had, some time before, 
apologized to Louis for the discourtesy shown to 
France in favoring the exiled Huguenots, and in di- 
recting Dongan to encourage them to settle in New 
York, with the promise of letters of denization. 

He multiplied Catholic chapels in London, and fa- 
vored the establishment of convents and the appear- 
ance of monks and friars, clad in the habits of their 
orders ; and made direct attack upon the Established 
Church by granting franchises to every religious sect. 
Then he invaded Oxford, that its rich endowments 
might be shared by the Catholics. 

As a last plunge, preparatory to the tumble from 
his throne, the blind King resolved to have his decla- 
ration of liberty of conscience read in every churcli of 
the realm. Little did he dream of the spirit he was 
provoking. The Archbishop of Canterbury and six 
other bishops refused to obey the command. The 
seven bishops were committed to the Tower. The 
jury brought in a verdict of " Not guilty," when thou- 
sands took it up, and echoed it again and again. The 
King heard the mighty roar, and asked in alarm what 
it meant. " The actiuittal of the Bishops," answered 
one of his lords. "It is so much the worse for 
them," answered his majesty. 

A military and naval expedition was meanwhile 
quietly organizing in the Netherlands, and William, 



Ancestral Sketches. 

" the Protestant of Orange," urged his preparations 
with indefatigable activity. At last a dispatch told 
the whole story. All at once William's expedition 
landed at Torhay. His forces swelled rapidly. Bishop 
Burnet drew up a j)aper, which was approved and 
eagerly signed by the English adherents, by which 
they promised to stand by William until the liberties 
and the religion of the nation should be effectually 
secured. 

James instituted negotiations with William, in or- 
der to gain time to send the Queen and the Prince of 
Wales into France, lie then made immediate prep- 
arations to abdicate the throne. At three o'clock in 
the morning of i ith December, he rose from his bed, 
ortlered the lord of his bedchamber not to open the 
door until the usual hour, and, passing down the back 
stairway, set out in the disguise of a servant, on a fish- 
ing-boat to France. He was arrested by some sailors, 
and having told his captors who he was, a great crowd 
came together to see the proud King in such mean 
hands. It was a trifling incident, and yet it proved 
to be the origin of the Jacobites. Until now, the 
King had scarcely had a party ; but from this mo- 
ment one budded into existence, which was long act- 
ive for his interests. 

William would not consent to make the father of 
his wife a prisoner. It was necessary to send him out 
of London, and a guard was ordered to attend him, 



N/c/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

but not to hamper his movements, and he left finally 
on the last day of the year, and reaehed France in 
safety. 

The English throne was declared vacant by the ab- 
dication of the King, and offered to William and Mary, 
by whom it was accepted. Mary arrived in safety from 
Holland, and on the 13th February, 16S9, William and 
Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of England. 

Louis set an example of royal munificence in pro- 
viding for the hapless King and his famil\-, and lavish- 
ed upon them every courtly attention. 

" In New York the resident members of the Gov- 
ernor's council were Frederick Philipse, Stephanus 
Van Cortlandt, and Nicholas Bayard. They were all 
members of the Dutch I-ieformed Church, and the 
last two were deacons in good and regular standing. 
They were men of wealth and aristocratic tastes. 
Philipse was sixty-five years of age, dignified, elegant, 
and conservative. A"an Cortlandt was forty-six years 
of age, had been a popular public man for more than 
twenty years, but at this critical moment a whisper 
was started that he was a secret Romanist. Bayard 
was the younger of the three, and occupied a distin- 
guished position as counselor to the Governor, and 
commander-in-chief of the New York militia. Me 
was fond of display, and conspicuously imperious. 
He was bright, genial, witty, and quick-tempered, had 
many warm personal friends among his equals, socially 
and politically, but was disliked by his inferiors. 



Ancestral Sketches. 

"Jacob Leisler was the prominent man of the hour. 
lie was a German, and not a Dutchman, as he has 
generally been supposed. lie was horn at Frankfort- 
on-the-Main. Of his origin and early life, very little 
is known. He had been a resident of New York 
about thirty years. He was a man of energetic will 
and great force of character, but he had little educa- 
tion, and comparatively speaking, no manners. lie 
hated the Crown and the Church of England ; was a 
zealous champion of Belgian republicanism, and a 
rancorous, though consistent party man. He was loud 
and coarse in conversation, and when angry would 
swear like a porter. He said bitter things which he 
readily forgot, but which others remembered to his 
sorrow and dishonor. His native quickness and sa- 
gacity would have rendered him eminent as a leader, 
but prosperity made him self-sufficient and boastful ; 
and his want of knowledge of the world muddled his 
understanding. His integrity was unquestionable, 
his loyalty unimpeachable, and he had a strong but 
distorted sense of duty and honor. In short, he pos- 
sessed the elements of executive power without the 
balancing characteristics. He was of medium height, 
robust frame, full round figure, austere visage, dressed 
carelessly, made long prayers, and was rigid in the per- 
formance of every religious duty. 

" He had some legal knowledge picked up in prac- 
tice of no very high kind, and he had used it in one 
or two lawsuits to the great pecuniary disadvantage of 



AHc/ioIas Bayard and His Times. 

Vim Coitlandt and Bayard, an offense wliich had ter- 
minated all social intercourse between tiie families. 

" He was an importer of liquors, and on the 29th, 
one of his vessels entered the harbor with a cargo of 
wine on board. He refused to pay the duties, which 
amounted to one hundred dollars, on the ground that 
Collector Plowman, being a Catholic, was not quali- 
fied to receive the customs under the new power. 
The case was discussed at the meeting of the council- 
ors, aldermen, and military officers, and the majority 
were of the opinion that the present official structure 
was sound until contrary orders came from the new 
sovereigns. Leislcr became \'ery much exasperated, 
and swore he would not pay a penny to Plowman ; he 
used language more forcible than elegant, and finally 
turned on his heel and left the council-chamber before 
the matter was adjusted. 

"As was feared, others declined to pay duties, 
shielding themselves under the excuse that Leisler 
had advanced. Many believed that the leading Dutch 
citizens were going over to popery. It was suddenly 
reported that Ex-Governor Dongan was the instigator 
of an infernal plot to destroy New York. It was true 
that he was fitting out an armed brigantine, but for 
quite a different object. 

" On the evening of the 21st of May, some persons 
appeared before Colonel Bayard with a petition (un- 
signed) asking that the Roman Catholics in the city 
be disarmed. Their conduct indicated serious alarm. 



Ancestral Sketches. 

The next morning the suhjcet and the petitiun were 
earnestly discussed in council. There were ridicu- 
lously few Catholics in either city or province. 
Among the soldiers, there were not over twenty of 
that faith, 'and they,' said Colonel Bayard, 'are old 
cripples.' But it seemed hest to gratify the people 
as far as possible ; hence Mayor Van Cortlandt sent 
for the authors of the petition to come and sign 
their names. They refused, and at the same time 
demanded an answer in writing, or to have their peti- 
tion returned. The mayor went to them and assured 
them that their wishes should be respected, but they 
received him ungraciously. Captains Leisler and 
Ludowyck were sent finally to return the petition and 
answer the writers verbally. Colonel Bayard went 
at the request of the council at the hall to endeavor 
to bring the mutineers to reason, and induce them to 
disperse ; but he was informed by StoU, their ring- 
leader, in the most insulting manner, that ' they dis- 
owned all authority of the government.' He returned 
to announce that his commands were disregarded, and 
that most of the city militia were in rebellion. Pres- 
ently drums began to beat. Workmen dropped their 
tools and implements of labor and rushed along the 
streets, and a panic spread through the town. Ter- 
ror, and a dread of no one knew what, rendered the 
scene almost hideous. Jacob Leisler's company mus- 
tered tumultuously before the door of his house, led 
by Sergeant StoU, and a few minutes later Captain 



A^icholas Bayard and H/s Times. 

Leislcr himself appeared and assumed command, and 
sent an armed posse to demand from tlie Lieuten- 
ant-Governor Nicholson the keys of the fort. 
There seemed but one course to pursue. The mil- 
itary had turned against the government, and the 
government was powerless. Bloodshed must be 
avoided if possible, and perhaps the people might l)e 
brought to their senses and their former obedience. 
The keys, after due consultation, were surrendered. 

•' Meanwhile the militia captains were sadly per- 
plexed. Some of them were afraid of the results of 
the outbreak, and regarded it as ill-timed and un- 
necessary, and sjient the greater part of the evening 
in warm discussion with the officers of the govern- 
ment, who were their neighbors and friends. 

" Leisler was at the fort descanting largely upon 
' Libertv.' He denounced popery and kings ; pro- 
claimed his own loyalty to the new Protestant sover- 
eigns, and pictured the danger which threatened the 
city as imminent. ' Nicholson the Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor was a traitor. He had accomplices about hnn, 
and there was no question but that Sunday would be 
another St. Bartholomew's Day.' Leisler drafted a 
resolution or ' Declaration,' stating that New York 
was threatened by Nicholson, and offering himself U) 
hold and guard the fort until the proper person should 
arrive and take command. The next morning there 
was a reaction in public feeling. The captains were 
not satisfied with the course events were taking. 

S3 



Ancestral Sketches. 

They were shrewd, sensible men, and doul)ted the 
policy of tiie movement ; antl after an excited con- 
sultation, visited Colonel Bayard and requested him 
to take the sole command. Bayard declined. ' Gen- 
tlemen, there is no occasion for a revolution,' he said. 
'The Lieutenant-Governor was honest and trust- 
worthy, and a little patience, and orders would arrive 
to establish everythinu' ui)on a [Mopcr basis.' 

" During the afternoon, Philipse, Van Cortlandt, 
and Bayard, the three councilors, mixed freely with 
tiie people, and tried to quiet their apprehensions 
respecting Nicholson. But counter-influences were 
at work. Leisler said they were all ' a pack of rogues 
and papists,' and tliat the councilors were in com- 
plicity with the traitor Lieutenant-Governor. He 
had wrought himself into a frenzy of political fore- 
sight, and probably may have believed his own 
prophecies. lie was diffuse upon the subject of self- 
government. ' Down with aristocracy ; down with 
tyranny and oppression. Let the people henceforth 
dictate'; and the people, naturally enough, shouted 
their a|)plause. He went on and explained, accord- 
ing to his understanding of it, the nature of the con- 
flict between the Church and State ; and again the 
people applauded. He warned them against the 
' dogs and traitors' who were only waiting for the op- 
portunity to commence a horrid massacre. Many a 
wistful eve, through that long and weary day, watched 

with cruel exjKctalion for indications of a death- 
84 



A^ic/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

storm ; and the common soldiers boastfully declared 
that 'the town would have been rumiinii rivers of 
blood but for Mr. Leisler.' The soldiers, in obedi- 
ence to Leisler's commands, ran in great disorder to 
the parade-ground in front of the fort. Captain Ludo- 
wyck hurried to the house of Philipse, where Nichol- 
son, Bayard, and \'an f'ortlandt were assembled, and 
in behalf of many of the captains, begged of Bayard 
to take command as formerly, for without his orders 
the most of them refused to appear in arms. Colonel 
Bayard replied that his orders had been so often dis- 
obeyed he hardly thought it worth while to appear 
only as a priv'ate soldier ; but as the captains had 
refused to act without his commands, the Lieutenant- 
Governor and the other memlters of the council gave 
orders that he should proceed, according to his com- 
mission as colonel of the regiment, to give suitable 
orders in the emergency. In a few minutes he was 
on the ground. He was received with respectful 
deference by the captains, but the men were rude and 
unmanageable. The troops were ordered to disperse ; 
but, instead of obeying the colonel or their captains, 
they crowded in a disorderly, noisy manner toward 
the fort, shouting, ' To Captain Leisler ! to Captain 
Leisler ! ' and threatened all those who tried to re- 
strain them. ' We will inill down your houses over 
your heads'; and ' Vou are vile traitorous papists, 
like Nicholson and his dogs,' rang upon the air. 
Leisler had remained within the fort, and was ready 

85 



Ancestral Sketches. 

with a ' document ' similar to the one prepared on Fri- 
day, which he read aloud, as soon as he could obtain a 
hearino;. It was received with riotous demonstrations 
of approval. Signers were called for, and over four 
hundred men put their names or their marks to it, 
for a large portion of them could neither read nor 
write. 

"Colonel Bayard retiretl from the scene as soon 
as he saw that he could be of no use in stemming the 
rebellion. In the 'west room' of Philipse's city 
mansion, Nicholson and his three councilors re- 
mainetl all day, without soldiers and without fort ; 
they were, indeed, but the hgure-head of a disabled 
government. 

" Soon a vessel entered the bay from Boston, and 
Leisler, on the alert, received the captain with military 
parade, and took his papers. Two letters addressed 
to Mayor \'an Cortlandt were first opened, and read 
aloud in the fort. The act was regarded as an out- 
rage, and the indignation of the helpless officers of 
the government was beyond expression. Soon 
Nicholson thought it wise to go to England and 
render a personal account of the condition of afi'airs ; 
and this course was warmly approved by his asso- 
ciates. 

" Nicholson went directly to Staten Island and 
bought a share in Dongan's brigantine, and after 
much vexatious delay, set sail on his voyage, lie 
deputed Philipse, Bayard, and Van Cortlandt with 



NicJtoIas Bayard and His Times. 

the charge of New York affairs during his absence. 
The three gentlemen were personally known, each of 
them, to many of the prominent English statesmen, 
and their importance in the colony had been the 
steady growth of years. They wrote a letter to Sec- 
retary Shrewsbury, giving a detailed description of 
the overthrow of the government. To this letter 
was attached several confirmatory documents. One 
was a Latin certificate from Dominie Selyns, signed 
by the consistory of the Dutch Church, in which the 
three gentlemen were declared to be ' pious, candid, 
and modest Protestant Christians, filling the offices 
of deacons and elders with consummate praise and 
approbation.' Rev. Mr. Innis provided himself with 
written evidence from the Dutch and French clergy- 
men, that they were sincere and conscientious Prot- 
estants and churchmen. 

" Nicholson's departure gave Leisler unexpected 
advantage. He became stern and patronizing, mag- 
nified his questionable appropriation of authority into 
a noble patriotism, compared himself to Cromwell, 
and declared that the ' Sword must now rule in New 
York.' He used lofty expressions in ordinary con- 
versation, and put labored paragraphs in his letters, 
which he spelt like a washerwoman. He changed 
the name of the fort from James to William. He 
was blindly infatuated with the new and unexpected 
idea of his own greatness, and everything for tiie 
moment wore a silvery tinge. But it was a ' vaulting 

87 



A uccstral SkctcJics. 

ambition, which o'crkaiil itself;' ami ' dresL in a 
little brief authority,' he was soon made to find his 
level, albeit thinos assumed a bright aspect for a time ; 
but ere long' the ablest of the captains proved less 
tractable than he had anticipated. While attempting 
to remove from office the Roman Catholic Collector 
Plowman, he was met so squarely in opposition by 
Captain De Peyster and Captain Stuyvesant, that lie 
was obliged to desist. 

" Mayor Van Cortlandt, accompanied by Colonel 
Bayard and several of the aldermen, rode out into 
Westchester, and stopped to dine with Lewis Morris, 
and discovered that they had been followed the whole 
distance by Leisler's son and Sergeant Stoll. 

"Two days later, Mayor A"an Cortlandt obtained a 
copy of the royal proclamation, which confirmed Prot- 
estant officers in their places under the new British 
sovereigns, William and Mary. He convened the 
aldermen and the citizens at once, and announced it, 
and thus established beyond all question the authority 
of Philipse, Van Cortlandt, and Bayard, who held 
their commissions from the Crown. 

" Leisler was furious over the occurrence. He 
charged 'Jacobitism' upon every one who would not 
join his standard. He called the three councilors 
' popishly affected, lying dogs.' He saw undoubtedly 
that he was in danger of losing his position unless 
he labored vigorously to sustain it. 

" Bayard made his escape for the time ; but the 



A^kholas Bayard and His Times. 

cry was raised thai ' llic rogues liad sixty men ready 
to kill Cai)tain Leisler,' and the infuriated populace 
were ready fur any uutlneak, and Bayard was advised 
to leave the city for a time, as he was in hourly peril 
of assassination. He was similarly counseled by 
many, who were amazed at the fury with which he 
was pursued. Assisted by his friends, who provided 
horses for him some miles above Philipse Manor, and 
attended by two negro servants, he managed to escape 
to Albany, where he was hospitably received and 
entertained by Mayor Peter Schuyler and Robert 
Livingston. 

"The excitement of the last few days had con- 
vinced half the town that the other half were con- 
cealing daggers, and about to rise and sustain the 
Roman Catholics. Many of the delegates to a 
hastily summoned convention, were men who were 
ignorant, and who were struggling with imperfect 
ideas of a democratic government, and openly jiro- 
mulgated the sentiment that ' there had been no legal 
king in England since Oliver Cromwell.' Ten men 
of the committee, assuming to represent a few of the 
towns near the metropolis, issued a commission ap- 
pointing Leisler commander-in-chief of the province. 
It was illegal, and served to illustrate the errors into 
which men will fall who are unaccustomed to rule. 
Had the authority of such a commission been resolutely 
questioned, it would have tumbled into dust. Leisler 
argued the necessity of the measure, as a prevention 



Ancestral Sketches. 

against anarchy ; so tlic 'Committee of Safety' gave 
him what they did not possess, and he tightened the 
reins, and liecamc more arl)itrary than ever ; and the 
aldermen not caring to run the risk of encountering 
a mob, adjourned for four weeks, presuming that, by 
that time, relief in some tangible shape would have 
arrived from England. Leisler counted all as 'pa- 
pists' who differed from himself. 

" Colonel Bayard, meanwhile in Albany, was in 
constant expectation of royal instructions which 
would restore order. He learned in October that 
his only son, who had been lying dangerously ill for 
some time, was in a dying condition. He wrote to 
the justices of the peace in New York asking per- 
sonal protection from Leisler while visiting his family. 
He offered to give security in money, or to answer 
any complaints or accusations which could be brought 
against him, and thereby satisfy the law. But tlie 
answer which he received was, ' The sword rules, and 
we have no power in opposition to Leisler.' He then 
wrote to Captains De Peyster and De Bruyn, with 
directions that the contents of his letter should be 
communicated to all the commissioned officers, order- 
ing them 'to bear good faith and aUegiancc ' to 
William and Mary, to be obedient to the civil author- 
ity of the city, and to desist from aiding or abetting 
the illegal proceedings of Leisler and his associates. 
As a commissioned colonel of the regiment, as well 
as one of the councilors of the government, he con- 
sidered that he was doing his duty. 

90 . 



Nic/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

"The captains put his communication into the 
hands of Leisler, who flew into a furious rage. He 
knew that Bayard, despite a little pomposity, stood 
hiyli in tiie estimation of a large class of the inhabit- 
ants of the province. Me knew that he was a man 
of orthodox religion and regular life, of ample fortune 
and high connections ; he knew that he was a scholar, 
and notwithstanding his Dutch and French parent- 
age, was an able expositor of the English law ; he 
knew that his logic had aheadv startled some of the 
captains as to the consequences of the revolt ; he 
knew that Nicholas Bayard was likely to be a con- 
tinual thorn in iiis side : in short, he was afraid of 
him, and Leisler was determined to crush so danger- 
ous a foe. Milbourne added fuel to the fire by 
describing the influence of Bayard in Albany. They 
feared he might overturn their whole structure, and 
they announced that he was a ' traitor and a villain,' 
and was coming upon New York to retake the fort 
for the late King James. 

" Captain De Peyster was a man of strong practical 
sense, and, seeing the mischief which was likely to 
result from needlessly exasperating the lower classes, 
warned Leisler to desist from his course. 

"The latter was in no mood to hear reproof, and 
angrily suspended him from office, appointing a more 
pliant captain in his stead. He thus lost one of the 
best men who had upheld him, and a counselor who 
might have saved him from destruction. 

91 



Ancestral Sketches. 

"Meanwhile Ba\aid had privately arrived at his 
own house. It was evening, but a soldier saw him, 
and ran with the news to the fort. A dozen armed 
men were sent at onee to arrest him. They went 
throutjh his house in a rough and riotous manner, 
greatly adding to the distress of his already afflicted 
family, by swearing that they would ' fetch him from 
the gates of hell.' Not fniding him, they proceeded 
to search Win Cortlandt's house in the same brutal 
manner, and threatening him so seriously that he 
■was obliged to esca|)e and hide himself in Con- 
necticut and Albany foi' some weeks. Mrs. \'an 
Cortlandt and her family were grossly insulted, but 
she bravely maintained her ground, and after a while 
was left in peace. The house of Dominie Selyns was 
searched, and he was treated to the same coarse and 
vulgar language. Sixteen of the chief families of the 
city were obliged to submit to a similar indignitv. 
Never was the pursuit of a culprit conducted in a 
more indecent manner. 

" Last of all Captain Stuvvesant was visited. He 
was an own blood cousin of Bayard, and the two had 
been intimate and most confidential friends from their 
boyhood. Stuyvesant had recently said that the 
stories about Bayard's being a Romanist were a ' pack 
of lies.' They invaded every room in his house from 
cellar to garret, and then went through all his barns 
and out-buildings. They acted like infuriated ani- 
mals, and many were intoxicated. 

(;2 



A^u/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

" The next day Captain Stuyvesant resio:ned his 
commission, and retired from anv further association 
with Leisler. He possessed too much of his father's 
spirit to lend himself for the furtherance of dishonor- 
able outrages. 

"The question will arise, Why was all this confu- 
sion allowed to exist ? Why came no orders from 
England ? ^V^hy were not men established in power 
to whom pewer properly belonged ? ^Vhy was 
William so ol)livious to his own interests ? 

" There were many reasons. The year which had 
passed since W^illiam took u]) the English sceptre, 
had been to him one of torturing anxiety and inces- 
sant toil. The enthusiasm which had welcomed him 
to the throne had been brief. He had himself pre- 
dicted the coming reaction, i-ieaction is the law of 
nature, as certain as the laws which regulate the suc- 
cession of the seasons and the course of the trade- 
winds. Many began to find excuse for the malad- 
ministration of James, and revealed signs of heart- 
felt pity for his exiled condition, and explained his 
remissness and his weakness, and saw things in a new 
light ; and William was alive to the consequences of 
the change in public opinion. He wished to do jus- 
tice to all parties. Members of his own household 
were in corresi)ondence with James. Insincerity 
lurked everywhere. He stood, as it were, upon a 
volcanic crater. Great events were following each 
other in rapid succession — war in France, revolt in 



Ancesiral Sketches. 

Ireland, anarchy in Scotland, etc. What time had 
he to think of his distant American Colonies?"* 

Nicholson, the Lieutenant-Governor, in the mean- 
time reached Whitehall from America. He related 
what had occurred in New York. It was quickly 
decided to send a Governor to that city, and two days 
later Colonel Henry Sloughter was appointed. 

Nicholson strove to obtain the post, but did not 
possess sufficient interest in Court. He was, however, 
appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, which 
was an emphatic approval of his conduct in New 
York. There was great delay in Sloughter's depart- 
ure. The troubles in Ireland absorbed universal 
attention ; the English nav3% too, was in a wretched 
condition, and all the vessels in the kingdom were in 
demand as convoys for William's army. 

Ensign StoU reached London with the dispatches of 
Leisler in November. He was loud and opinionated, 
and wearied the courtiers. He had the assurance to 
suggest a suspension of Sloughter's commission, 
which was treated with cool indifference. He made 
himself conspicuous in England only as a miserable 
failure, and would have done Leisler far better service 
if he had remained in New York. 

Matthew Clarkson, who went to London in the 
same vessel with StoU, fareil differently. His father. 
Rev. David Clarkson, was an eminent divine of 
Yorkshire. His family were well known at White- 



' Mrs. Lamb, " Flistory of New York." 
94 



Nicholas Tiayard and His Times. 

hall, and himself a young man of culture and refine- 
ment. He obtained the appointment of Secretary of 
the province, and returned with Sloughter. 

Leisler announced publicly that he had received a 
commission from the King to be Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor of the province of New York. He assumed the 
station and title, appointed a council, and caused 
William and Mary to be proclaimed anew. Trans- 
formed into a royal chief, he sternly inculcated the 
doctrine of passive obedience. The larger portion of 
the intelligent class of inhabitants knew that his 
extraordinary assumption had no foundation in fact, 
and that his acts under the circumstances could not 
be sustained by law. Leisler was quick of superficial 
apprehension, and acted with remarkable promptitude. 
He possessed the elements of administrative capacity, 
but ignorance and inexperience in matters of state 
eflectually clogged his path. Many who hailed him 
in the first instance as their protector from the evils 
of "despotism and popery," were disappointed, and 
became his bitterest opponents. His dogmatism 
bore him with the swiftness of an arrow into blun- 
ders which no after repentance could retrieve. He 
wrote a clumsy letter to King William explanatory 
of his conduct. He stated that his course had given 
great satisfaction to most of the inhabitants in the 
province. He determined to prevent any letters 
from disaffected persons from reaching Boston, to be 
conveyed from thence to England, and caused the 

95 



Ancestral Sketches. 

arrest of the post-rider about t)ne-fourth of a mile 
beyond tlie house of Colonel Lewis Morris in West- 
chester, where it was known. he frequently stopped 
for postal matter. The mail-bag was opened, and 
found to contain private letters from Bayard, Van 
Cortlandt, Morris, Nicolls, and others. All criticised 
Leisler and his associates unsparingly and virulentlv. 
The post-rider was thrown into prison, from which 
he was not released for many months. Leisler an- 
nounced that he had detected a " hellish conspiracy " 
against the Government. He issued warrants for the 
apprehension of each of the gentlemen who had writ- 
ten to Whitehall. 

"Colonel Bayard was the first on the list, and the 
most rancorously pursued. The soldiers swore that 
they had orders to take him dead or alive. They 
broke in the doors of his house, destroyed furniture 
as they went from room to room, and were profane 
and insolent to Mrs. l^ayard and other members of 
the household. Bayard had secreted himself in a 
building near, where they found him at last, and 
dragged him in a most abusive manner to the fort. 
He was immediatelv manacled with irons, and the 
ponderous door of the prison closed upon iiim. 

" Van Cortlandt's house was broken open in the same 

riotous manner, but he made his escape, and his wife, 

dreading a repetition of former scenes, had fled with 

him. Some weeks elapsed before she ventured to 

return, and even then her liberty was threatened, and 
96 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

her children insuked. A serious ilhiess broke out in 
her family, and one beloved child died ; but the hus- 
band and father could only learn of his affliction in 
his refuge at Hartford, and at the same time grieve 
that his loyalty was misrepresented, his honor stained, 
his credit blasted, and his large estate running to 
decay. 

'■ William Nicolls, after escaping the soldiers through 
various stratagems, was finally seized at the Long 
Island ferry-house, and cast into the ill-ventilated 
dungeon beside Colonel Bayard. He was a spirited 
young man of thirty-three, the son of Mathias Nicolls, 
the former Secretary of the province. Like his father, 
young Nicolls was an aristocratic person ; and he had 
been conspicuous in his denunciations of Leisler, 
whom he called a ' German upstart.' He was the 
Attorney-General of the province, and his character 
for courage and professional ability stood high. He 
was also a justice of the peace ; and the chief ground 
of his imprisonment was his refusal to surrender this 
commission under the tyrant's edict. He was a 
bachelor, but three years later married Anna, daugh- 
ter of Jeremias Van Rensselaer. It was rumored ere 
long that both Bayard and Nicolls were to be tried 
for treason. 

" Meanwhile Bayard was very ill in prison. His life 
was pronounced in imminent danger, unless he could 
obtain medical attention and physical comforts. He 
therefore sent to Leisler, as ' Lieutenant-Governor,' 

97 



Ancestral Sketches. 

asking for release. Leislcr was immensely gratified 
with the concession, but Bayard was too dangerous 
an enemy to be allowed to run at large with impunity, 
and the petition was denied. Abundant bail was 
offered and refused. Both Bayard and Nicolls were 
kept in miserable cells until the arrival of Sloughter. 
In spite of all these rigorous measures, Leisler found 
that much of the fruit of his position was exceedingly 
unpalatable. He could command little considera- 
tion, save at the point of the sword. He was called 
' Lieutenant Blockhead,' ' Deacon Jailor,' ' Gover- 
nor Dog- driver,' and other uncomplimentary epi- 
thets. These offenders were, when detected, unspar- 
ingly punished. Robert Livingston incurred the 
wrath of ' the upstart,' and was pursued until he was 
obliged to escape from the province to escape incar- 
ceration. He found refuge in Hartford with his 
brother-in-law, Van Cortlandt. Livingston's offense 
was ' disloyalty to Leisler.' His influence in Albany, 
and his wealth, and his resolute character, made him 
a formidable enemy. He was charged with being a 
'Jacobite,' and his lands were seized for taxes, which 
he defiantly refused to pay. Mayor Schuyler and 
the Albanv Convention demanded sight of the king's 
letter to Nicholson giving him office, and, as it was 
withheld, they declined to acknowledge Leisler as 
Lieutenant-Governor." 

" In the midst of his troubles Stoll arrived from En- 
gland, with information which greatly disturbed Leis- 



NicJiolas Bayard and His Times. 

ler. The King had taken no notice of him, and had 
appointed Nicholson, his adversary. Governor of Vir- 
ginia. There was significance in the fact, and he saw 
that tlie tide of popular feeling was setting against 
him. There was great outcry against the taxes, and 
the right of the assembly called by Leisler to impose 
them was stoutly denied. Presently, the demands 
for the release of Bavard and NicoUs assumed a very 
black antl threatening aspect. Leisler was one day 
assaulted in tiie street, and but for his never ventur- 
ing out without a guard, he would probably have 
i)een killed. The assailants were quickly mastered, 
and some twent\' or more were secured in arms." 

" Complaints were not wholly checked with all his 
caution. Ap, address to William and Mary, signed by 
the French and Dutch dominies, several elders and 
deacons, and manv leading citizens, was dated May 
ig, and sent across the water. It stated that New 
York was ruled bv the sword, 'at the sole will of an 
insolent alien, assisted by those who formerly were 
not thought fit to bear the meanest offices, ^everal of 
whom can be proved guilty of enormous crimes ; and 
they imprison at will, open letters, seize estates, plun- 
der houses, and abuse the clergymen,' etc., etc. 

" The last letter which Leisler wrote to the King was 
dated October 20, 1690. Not far from the same date 
the aggrieved inhabitants of Long Island wrote to 
the King's Secretary of State. They dwelt with bit- 
ter emphasis upon their oppressed condition, and 



Aiiccstral Sketches. 

upon the tyrannical acts of the 'bold usurper' and 
his accomplices. They said Milborne, who was fa- 
mous for nothing but infamy, had in 'a barbarous 
and inhuman manner, plundered houses, stripped 
women of their apparel, and sequestered estates'; 
and begged the King ' to break this heavy yoke of 
worse than Egyptian bondage,' and said the ills which 
Leisler had done, ' were only to be likened to 
Catiline's.' 

" Dominie Varick, of Flatbush, was arrested and im- 
prisoned for 'too much liberty of speech'; and an 
attempt was made to imprison Dominie Dellius, of Al- 
bany, for praying for the Crown, and not for the King, 
but he escaped to Boston. Dominie Selyns offered bail 
for Varick, and was grossly abused, and Dominies Fer- 
ret and Daille were threatened for withholding their ap- 
proval of these high-handed proceedings. Even Leisler's 
friends ! were aghast at his hot-headed and rancorous 
proceedings. But they could not hinder him. He 
was deaf and blind to the commonest dictates of hu- 
manity. It is probable that fear had mucii to do with 
his conduct, as he saw no other way to hold the chair 
of State but by mere brutal force. Milborne insinu- 
ated himself into the good graces of Leisler's family, and 
came every day with some new and dismal skeleton, 
which was to alienate them more and more effectually 
from their relatives and friends. He was always glow- 
ering, and how he came to win the affections of the 
gentle, fair-haired, blue-eyed Mary Leisler, must always 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

remain a mystery. They were married in the early part 
of the year, and none of the friends who had formerly 
been most welcome in the household were present ; 
and there was heaviness in the air, and little light in 
the sunshine. That very ev^cning came letters from 
Boston to Lcisler, counseling him ' to temper justice 
with moderation and mercy, since the King's own set- 
tlement of the matter was so near.' The new Gov- 
ernor (Sloughter) was upon the sea, and might arrive 
at any moment. But the dread of his coming seems 
to have made the insane man more hard than ever." 

" William had been brought to a sense of the condi- 
tion of New York, through the petitions and ad- 
dresses which at length reached him. The frigate 
Archangel and three smaller vessels were fitted, after 
much delay, to convey the new Governor, Sloughter, 
and the Lieutenant-Governor, Ingoldsby, to their sta- 
tions. Two companies of soldiers sailed with these 
officers to America. The name of Leisler was not 
named by William in his list of counselors to the 
new government, but the former officers of the colo- 
nial party were reinstated, and the sting to Leisler was 
destined to be incurable. All the papers which had 
been received from Leisler, and the petitions from the 
inhabitants, were referred by the King and Privy 
Council to Sloughter, with orders to examine strictly 
and impartiallv into the case, and return a true and 
perfect account." 

"The fleet was a lonsi time on the ocean, and the 



Ancestral Skctdics. 

vessels were separated in a storm, and three under the 
command of Ingoldsby were the first to reach New 
Vork, when the new Lieutenant-Governor prepared 
to land and take possession of the fort. He sent a 
message demanding the citadel for the King's soldiers 
and their stores. Lcisler refused to yield the fort un- 
less Ingoldsby should produce written orders from the 
King or Governor. Ingoldsby was intlignant ; he 
knew that William had never recognized Leisler's au- 
thority, and in high temper he issued a mandate for 
aid against the ' rebels ' who opi)osed the King. A 
day or two passed, when Ingoldsby issued a proclama- 
tion that he had not come to disturb, but protect the 
people ; he therefore landed his troops with as much 
caution as if he had been making a ' descent into an 
enemy's country,' and quartered them in the City 
Hall, and sent Leisler an order to release Bayard and 
Nicolls, ' who were named as councilors by the King.' 
This was the roughest blow which had as yet descended 
upon this misguided man. 'What!' he exclaimed, 
white and trembling with rage, ' those popisli dogs and 
rogues/' The answer he sent back was to the effect 
that they must remain confined 'until his majesty's 
further orders arrive.' Time moved on slowlv. 
Where was the missing frigate and Gov. Sloughter ? 
The city was in a great tumult. Lcisler forbade the 
King's soldiers from going the rounds, and issued vo- 
luminous threats. Si.\ of the councilors met and finally 
issued a call for the neighboring militia, to prevent any 



A^ic/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

'outrageous and hostile proceedings' on the part of 
Leisler. Matthew Clarkson, the new Secretary, wrote 
by request of the councilors to the government of 
Connecticut for advice. A response came quickly, 
with advice that anything 'tolerable and redressible,' 
had better be borne from Leisler until the arrival of 
Sloughter. Leisler was obtusely stubborn. He or- 
dered Ingoldsby to disband his forces, otherwise they 
would be pursued and destroyed, and demanded an 
answer in two hours. It came. Ingoldsby said he 
wished to preserve peace, and whoever should attack 
them, would be ' public enemies to the Crown of 
England.' 

" It would seem as if the judgment of Leisler was 
wholly unbalanced just at this crisis. He had not the 
slightest intention proi)al>lv of disobeying his royal 
master, and yet he placed himself in the direct atti- 
tude of rebellion. Within half an hour after he re- 
ceived Ingoldsby's temperate message he fired one of 
the guns of the fort at the King's troops as they stood 
on parade. Several were wounded and two killed. 
The guns of the fort were answered, but without ill 
effects. The next day Leisler fired a few more shots, 
which did no harm. Ingoldsby held his men on the 
defensive, expecting a sally from the fort at any 
moment. 

" At this distressing moment word came that the 
Archangel, with the Governor on board, was l)elow 
the Narrows ! She had been nearly wrecked on the 



Ancestral Skctclics. 

Bermuda rocks, and detained fur repairs. The coun- 
cilors hastened to welcome the long-expected Gover- 
nor. As soon as he learned the state of affairs he 
came at once to the city in the ship's pinnace. It 
was evening, hut he proceeded at once to the City 
Hall ; the bell was rung. The shouts of joy and noisy 
uproar made Leisler tremble. Full well he knew 
'That when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to 
hope again,' and yet, even then, he sent StoU with 
his refusal to Sloughter to enter the fort, unless he 
received 'orders under the King's own hand, directed 
to himself,' to yield it to him. No notice \yas taken 
of StoU. Ingoldsby was sent to the fort to order 
Leisler and such as were called his council, to report 
themselves at the City Hall, and to release Bayard 
and Nicolls immediately from their confinement. 
Leisler said the fort could not be surrendered in the 
night-time according to military rules. Ingoldsby was 
sent to the fort the third time with the same order, 
and was the third time 'contemptuously' refused. 
It was now past midnight, and the Governor directed 
the council to meet him early the next morning. And 
thus ended that eventful day. 

" The gentlemen assembled promptly on Friday 
morning at the City Hall. Leisler had prepared an 
apologetic letter, tendering the fort and government, 
in the best English he could use, promising to give 
'an exact account of all his actions and conduct.' 

But Sloughter's plans were all made before the docu- 
104 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

ment was received, and it was laid on the table unno- 
ticed. He sent Ingoldsby to require the men in the 
fort to ground their arms and march out, promising 
pardon to all, save Leisler and his council. The lat- 
ter, having ' been found in actual rebellion,' were 
conducted to the City Hall and committed to the 
guards." The great prison door was oj)ened, and Bay- 
ard and Nicolls freed from their long confinement. 
They were brought to the City Hall, looking aged 
and emaciated, and hardly able to stand upon their 
■feet. They took the oaths of office amid the warmest 
congratulations ; and a little later Leisler was con- 
veyed to the same dungeon which they had occupied, 
and the chain which Bayard had worn was put uj^on 
his leg. "^ long /areivcll to all my greatness" 

LETTER FROM JACOB LEISLER* TO GOV. SLOUGHTER. 

" March 20, 1691, at Fort William. 
"May it please your Excellency, this, his Majesty's 
fort, being besieged by Major Ingoldsby, so far as not 
that a boat would depart, nor persons conveyed out of 
the same, without to be in danger of their lives, which 
has occasioned that I could not be so happy as to 
send a messenger to you to give me certainty of your 
E.xcellency's safe arrival, and an account of what was 
published, of which I am ignorant still ; but the joy I 
had by a full assurance from Ensign Stoll of your 

* Dunlap's "History of New York." 



Ancestral Skciclics. 

Ex'cellcncy's arrival, has been somewhat truuhled h)- the 
detention of two of my messengers. I see here well the 
stroke of my enemies, who are wishing to cause me 
some mistakes at the end of the loyalty I owe to my 
gracious king and queen, and by such ways to blot 
out all my faithful service till now ; but I hope to 
have cause not to commit such error ; having by my 
duty and faithfulness being rigorous to them. Please 
only to signify and order the Major in releasing me 
from his Majesty's fort, delivering him only his Majes- 
ty's arms and all the stores, and that he may not act 
as he ought with a person who shall give your excel- 
lency an exact account of all his actions and conduct ; 
and who is, with all the respect, your 

" Excellency's most humble servant, 

"Jacob Leisler." 

But this elaborate effusion did not help him ; "and 
we see Jacob Leisler bjought in to his enemies a pris- 
oner, and turned over to the guards on the same day 
that the above letter was written." Sloughter at once 
took possession of the fort, which he named " \Villiam 
Henry." 

" The following Sunday was the first time m months 
that tlie church-going community had iireathed freely. 
The different clergymen thanked God fervently for 
present blessings. Dominie Selyns preached from the 
twenty-seventh Psalm, ' I had fainted unless I had 



Nic/ioias Bayard ami His Times. 

believed to see the goodness of God, in the land of 
the livina;.' His sermon, penned through the fullness 
of joy at the turn events were taking, may have been 
a libel upon the Christian theory of mercy to a fallen 
foe, but it was the outpouring of a heart which had 
been sorely tried, and the reasonings of a spirit which 
had calmly reviewed the situation. It had its effects 
upon public opinion, and stimulated the demand 
whicli was everywhere rending the air for the punish- 
ment of the author of the wrongs which had been 
visited upon the communitv. Not a ray of pity for 
the mistakes of the humiliated Leisler seemed to pen- 
etrate the ceil where he sat in a state of the most ali- 
ject despondency. On Monday a committee was 
appointed to examine the prisoners. They were 
committed for trial. Owing to certain recent trans- 
actions, Sloughter declined hearing the case, and or- 
dered a special court of Oyer and Terminer. All the 
gentlemen nominated were capable of discerning the 
truth ; and were the least prejudiced against the pris- 
oners. Bayard, Van Cortlandt, and Pinhorne were 
directed to prepare the evidence. Nicolls, Farwell, 
and James Emmot were assigned as King's counsel, 
to assist Attorney-General Newton, who was then re- 
puted the best lawyer in America." 

The trial began March 30. The indictment found 
by the Grand Jury charged the prisoners with treason 
and murder,"for holding by force the King's fort against 
the King's Governor, after the publication of his com- 



Anccsira/ Sketches. 

mission, and after demand had been made in the King's 
name, and in the reducino; of which lives had been 
lost." Leisler and Milborne refused to plead. Slough- 
ter and his council declared that nothing in the King's 
letter, or in any of the papers of the Privy Council 
which Sloughter had seen, could be understood or in- 
terpreted to contain any power and direction to Cap- 
tain Jacob Leisler, to assume control of the govern- 
ment of the province, and that such control could not 
be holden good in law. Leisler and Milborne still re- 
fusing to plead, were tried as mutes. After eight days 
the jury pronounced them "guilty." The eight pris- 
oners at once petitioned for a reprieve until the King's 
pleasure should be known, and their petition was 
granted. 

" Sloughter wrote to William : ' Never greater vil- 
lains lived, but I am resolved to wait your pleasure, if 
by any other means than hanging I can keep the 
country quiet.' He also wrote: '1 find these men 
against whom the depositions were sent, to be the 
principal and most loyal men of this place, whom Leis- 
ler and Milborne did fear, and therefore grievously 
oppress. Many that followed Leisler were, through 
ignorance, put up to do what they did, and I believe 
if the chief ringleaders are made an example, the whole 
country will be quieted, which otherwise will be hard 
to do.' And added : ' The loyal and best part of the 
country is very earnest for the execution of the pris- 
oners. But if his majesty will please grant his pardon 
io8 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

for all except Jacob Leisler and Jacob Milboine, it 
will be a favor.' Bayard and NicoUs, he added, could 
always prove that they had been good Protestants, 
and only desired to continue the government in peace 
until orders should arrive from England. 

" Orders came in May for the execution of Leisler 
and Milborne, and Dominie Selyns was the messen- 
ger sent to break the news to the unhappy men. They 
petitioned Sloughter for a reprieve, but it was not 
granted. The day of execution dawned with a dark, 
melancholy, north-east storm brooding over the city. 
A strong guard of soldiers was necessary to prevent 
the prisoners from being torn to pieces when they 
should be led forth. Dominie Selyns walked beside 
the doomed men, and offered the last consolations of 
religion. Leisler made a short speech upon the scaf- 
fold. He said he knew he had grievously erred in 
many ways, and asked pardon of God and man. He 
declared his lovalty to the King and Queen, and 
prayed that all malice might be buried in his grave. 
Milborne spoke for a few minutes in a pathetic strain, 
but seeing Robert Livingston in the crowd, he ex- 
claimed, ' You have caused my death. Before God's 
tribunal I will impeach you for the same.' The 
sheriff asked if they were ready to die. Leisler replied 
that he was. The drop fell. It was a solemn and 
ominous occasion, and it left its abiding mark upon 
New York historv. Its effects are still with us. Bet- 
ter men have paid as dearly for their mistakes in all 

log 



^Inccstra/ Sketches. 

ages of the world, hut Jacoh Lcisler and Jacoh Mil- 
horne were the only two who were ever executed in 
New York for a political crime." 

"William declared in favor of the fairness of the 
trial and the justness of the sentence, since they were 
not indicted for the part they had taken in the revolu- 
tion, or the subsequent violences, but simply for holding 
a fortress by arms against the legal Governor, but he 
ordered their estates to be returned to their heirs, be- 
cause the services of the fathers required some com- 
pensation ; and when, in 1694, Rol)ert Livingston met 
young Leisler in F.ngland, bent upon the entire resti- 
tution of his estates, he aided him with all his power." * 

Sloughter's career in America was soon over. He 
was taken suddenly ill on the 21st of July, and died 
on the 23d, and was interred in the Stuyvesant vault 
by permission. 

" In 1698 Lord Bellomont, tlie new English Gover- 
nor after Sloughter, arrixed in New York, but he 
soon became uni)()pular, and after a short absence 
from New York, founti, u|)((n iiis return, that peti- 
tions had been extensively signed asking for his recall, 
and sent to Whitehall. . . . The great bone of contention 
in the council was j)iracv ; all were agreed on tiie ne- 
cessity for its sup]iression. It was now well known 
that Captain Kitld had raised the black Mag; ami tlie 
possible complicity of Hellomont himself was on 
men's lips all over the world. The excitement was 

* Mrs. Lamb's " History of New York." 



Nicholas Bayard and Hts Times. 

intense. Rumor distorted facts. A beautiful dia- 
mond ring worn by Mrs. Bayard was said to bave 
been taken from tbe finger of an Arabian princess, 
and romance soon wove the story into a bloody mur- 
der. It was reported to have been the price paid to 
Bayard for obtaining the murderer's protection ; and 
many of the most altsurd rumors were rife of several 
prominent citizens. Colonel Bayard was so indignant 
at the treatment he received, that he made a voyage 
to England at once, and personally laitl the subject 
before the King and Lords of Trade." 

" In May, 1701, Bellomont died of gout, and ended 
his unsatisfactory labors at the age of sixty-five. His 
death was the source of fresh troubles, and the sad- 
ness which fell like a pall over New York was 
quickly followed by a clash in the political arena. 
The city was again without a head, and party jeal- 
ousies kept up a continual ferment. Stephanus \'an 
Cortlandt had recently died, and shortly afterward, his 
wife was summoned before the Auditing Committee 
to pay an alleged deficit in her husband's account. 
She was a decided and proud woman, and took no 
notice of the mandate. She even withheld the books 
and papers when they were demanded. Quite an 
excitement was raised on her account, but she stood 
out fearlessly. She believed her husband to have 
been perfectlv upright, and was determined to prevent 
his memorv from being sullied through the malice of 
the party in power. Her resolute course of action 



Ancestral Sketches. 

was attributed to the iiilluence of Nicholas Bayard, 
whose only son Samuel had recently married her 
daughter Margaret, and the families were, if possible, 
more intimate than ever. It was the same feud of 
the common rulers and aristocrats, and luckily the 
new Governor, Lord Cornbury, came just in time to 
save her from being publicly annoyed. . . . Chief-Justice 
Atwood came at the same time from England. His 
judicial jurisdiction extended over New York and 
New England ; but he was not well received, and 
was many times affronted in the most public manner, 
and his wrath waxed hot. He had a sharp contest 
with the son of Robert Livingston in Boston, and 
was instrumental in seizing the cargo of a vessel be- 
longing to Colonel Samuel \"etch, afterwards Gover- 
nor of Nova Scotia, whose wife was Margaret, daugh- 
ter of Robert Livingston. As for Livingston himself, 
he was vilified, accused, and threatened on every side. 
Party ingenuity was constantly at work devising new- 
ways for blackening his character. And equally vir- 
ulent were the attacks upon Colonel Nicholas Bay- 
ard, whose power as a political ruler was well under- 
stood. The passage of the ' Leisler Bill,' as it was 
called, was a foregone conclusion with the Leislerians ; 
hence a proclamation was issued ordering every per- 
son concerned to bring in claims and losses for settle- 
ment. The inventory that followed was a most 
extraordinary mathematical production, as might 
have been predicted. ' One old gun and a small 



N^ic/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

rusty swurd sci/.ctl hv (iuvcrnor Sluii^hter,' were 
together valued at /'40 ; and luindreils of similar 
items might be cited. 

Colonel ■ Bayard was soon arrested for ' high 
treason,' and the city militia were placed on guard 
above his cell to prevent his being rescued by his 
enraged friends. Chief -Justice Atwood had de- 
nounced the haughtiness of the tone of some docu- 
ments sent to him, and with his adherent, Weaver, 
detected what they styled 'an infernal plot.' Bayard 
and Hutchings were arraigned, indicted, and tried 
for 'high treason.' They petitioned for the post- 
ponement of the trial, and Samuel Bayard begged 
earnestly that his father might have a jury composed 
of Englishmen. This, too, was without avail. Chief- 
Justice Atwood was on the bench. Weaver was the 
prosecuting attorney, and insisted upon sitting with 
the jury. When the gentlemen of the jury differed 
from him materially in opinion, he threatened ' to 
have them trounced.' 

" W^illiam NicoUs and James Emmot appeared for 
the defense. They were Ijoth remarkable lawyers 
for the times in which they lived ; but their sound 
reasoning and eloquence were wasted on this occa- 
sion, the prisoners having been condemned in advance 
by both judge and jurors. 

" Bayard pleaded ' not guilty.' The defense at- 
tempted to show^ that the addi esses were the op- 
posite of treasonable, their design being simply to 



A nccsiral Sketches. 

prove to the Lords of Trade that the signers were 
neither 'Jacobites' nor ' pirates,' as had been repre- 
sented. Weaver, in a violent speech, charged the 
EngHshmen of New York with trying to introduce 
popery and slavery into the province, and pronounced 
Bayard the leader. He said they were a band of 
pirates, and had offered the late Lord Bellomont 
^10,000 to connive at their infamv. When the case 
was turned over to the jury, they were absent but a 
few moments from the room, but returned with a 
verdict of ' guilty.' At one stage of the trial Nicolls 
moved for an adjournment until the next morning. 
'No,' responded the Chief-Justice, 'we do not pro- 
pose to give the Rev. Mr. Vesey a chance for another 
sermon against us.' 

"Chief-Justice Atwood immediately proceeded to 
pronounce the horrible English sentence upon 'trai- 
tors,' then in full force. Bayard applied for a re- 
prieve until his Majesty's pleasure should be known. 
This was denied him. Six several petitions were in 
like manner rejected by the Lieutenant-Governor, Man- 
fan. The Governor, Lord Cornbury, and prominent 
gentlemen of the neighboring provinces, interceded ; 
but this only added fuel to the flames, and it was to 
no purpose. The day of execution was fixed. Of this 
Bayard was duly notified, and placed in irons, tie was 
forbidden to see his wife and other relatives. Finalh', 
friends drew up a petition worded to express sorrow for 
the offense of signing the address, which they obliged 



AYc/io/as Bayard and His 1 iiiics. 

him to sign, and, at tlie last moment, it obtained a re- 
prieve, but it tlid not liberate him from prison." 

On the dav that Colonel Bayard was denouneed as 
a traitor, William died, after a reign of thirteen years. 
The crown de\olved upon Anne, the daughter of 
James. Lord Cornburv had just arrived as the new 
Governor of New York. Anne confirmed his com- 
mission immediately upon her accession to the throne. 
His coming was fortunate just at this juncture, else 
the excesses of the " Leislerian party " would have 
sown discord be3^ond all hope of future reconciliation. 
Many merchants and property owners had already 
removed into New Jersey. They came back, however, 
to watch the effects of the new administration. 

" Colonel Ba3'ard's case was upon every person's 
lilis, and Cornbury gave it his first attention. He 
found that Atwood had forbidden any one from tak- 
ing notes in the court, not excepting the lawyers 
themselves. The whole trial had been conducted in 
an irregular manner. Prisoners had been convicted 
and sentenced to die for signing 'treasonable papers,' 
when the papers themselves, at the time of conviction, 
had never been seen by the Lieutenant-Governor, by 
any member of his council, by Weaver, who filed 
the prosecution, by the grand jury who found the 
bill, nor by the petty jury who brought in the verdict 
of guilty. They were to be executed for supposed 
li'rittcii treason which was never produced in e\'idence, 
nor proved to be treason " 



A nccstral Sketches. 

" Atwood and Weaver found themselves standmg in 
a very odious light, and both suddenly absconded, 
notwithstanding the latter was under heavy bonds to 
render a true account of his custom-house collections. 
The two were concealed in Virginia until they could 
sail for England — Atwood assuming the name of 
Jones and Weaver that of Jackson. Cornbur\' for- 
mally suspended them from all their offices, and ap- 
pointed other councilors in their stead. Cornbury 
was fully aware of the feeling the various accounts of 
the crime and trial of Bayard had awakened among 
the Lords of Trade. lie was well known per- 
sonally to them, and party spirit was thoroughly 
understood. They had resolved that Bayard and 
Ilutchings should have a hearing before the Queen 
in council. A letter to this effect was written to the 
Earl of Manchester on the first day of May. 

" A royal order subseijuently reached Cornbury for 
the release of Bayard on bail, and a few montiis later 
the Queen, by advice of her council, reversed the sen- 
tences which had been pronounced upon both Bayard 
and Hutchings, and reinstated them in their property 
and honors ' as if no such trial had been.' 

"As for Livingston, Cornbury was cordiallv deter- 
mined to see him justified before the world too. The 
accounts and vouchers which had been in possession 
of Lord Ikllomont, were obtained, and proved effect- 
ual also in removing the aspersions from Livingston's 
character. His estates were restored, and two years 



A^ic/io/as Bayard and His Times. 

later a cx)mmissioncr from Oucen Anne reinstated 
liim in all his honors." 

Nicholas Bayard died in 1707. His will was 
probated in 1709. In reviewing his life it seems 
as if he had " felt the influence of Malignant star," 
throughout almost its whole continuance. He was 
in advance of the times, and was adapted to a much 
higher existence than this era of turmoil and confu- 
sion could give him. Highly accomplished, and gifted 
by education and self-culture, he was fitted " to shine in 
courts," instead of having to contend with the Leis- 
lers, Atwoods, Weavers, etc., with whom he was 
brought in contact. 

The Dutch and French languages he spoke and 
wrote as he did the English, and the most intricate 
law papers of the time, in all these languages, were 
submitted to, or written by him. Singularly hand- 
some and manlv in aj^pearance, he won all hearts by 
the courtesy and dignity of his manners, and the 
nobleness and earnestness of his character sustained 
him in the most trying periods of his life, and explain 
the proud position he maintained in America. He 
gained universal popularity in England by his bearing, 
and his "Tory" descendants, even some eighty years 
afterward, when forced to seek refuge there, felt the 
good effects of the remembrance he left behind him. 

Nicholas outlived his brother Balthazar, who also 
came over from Holland with the families of Bavard 

•17 



Ancestral Sketches. 

and Stuyvesant in 1647, and witli whom he had always 
lived in fraternal affection ; and his wife, the celebrated 
Judith (Verlet) Bayard, our "Beautiful Witch," out- 
lived him. His wife was the "Judy" who advised 
him on all occasions of moment, and to whom he left 
his larsje estate, and afterward to their only child 
Samuel, who had married Margaret, the daughter of 
his life-long friend, Stephanus \"an Cortlandt, the 
" Councilor," who shared with him the intricacies and 
trouble of misrule and change, which retarded so long 
the growth and prosperity of the province. 

Nicholas Bayard was interred in the family vault on 
his estate in New York. All his descendants were 
buried there for many years, until the "leveling" of 
the citv commenced, and the private propertv of indi- 
\ iduals had to be annexed to promote its growth ; 
when the " Bavard \"ault " had to be abandoned, and 
its tenants removed, it was taken and for some time 
occupied by an eccentric "hermit," who made it his 
abode. Mrs. Bayard, after her husl)and's death, lived 
on the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane ; her 
son long survived her, leaving a large family. . . . Bal- 
thazar (the brother of Nicholas), will dated March 4, 
probated Feb. ig, 1705. Wife Maria Loockermans 
(Sole Exec.) 

[ Anientje Yerplanck, 
Children, -\ Anna Maria Jay (wife of Aug. Jay), 
^Judith . 

All his Estate to his wife. 
118 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

In June, 1710, New \'urk once more rejf)iccd in a 
Governor. Robert Hunter was unlike any of his 
predecessors. He was a cultivated man of middle age, 
and was a model of "morality." He had for many years 
enjoyed the friendship of Swift, Addison, and other 
literary men of English renown. He was an agree- 
able, social companion, and was fond of men of learn- 
ing. He had been appointed Governor of Virginia, 
but applied for the government of New York, which 
was then vacant, and his wishes were graciously re- 
spected. It was not an auspicious moment for the 
enjoyment of life there, but Hunter set an example 
of forbearance and sterling integrity, which cooled the 
heated atmosphere, and public affairs soon assumed a 
better aspect. He brought with him his lovely and 
accomplished wife. When in the army he had mar- 
ried Lady Hay, the bright particular star of his desti- 
ny, who was always by his side. She was a person of 
superior education and rare accomplishments, "shining 
in society rather through the retiected light of her hus- 
band, but in domestic life radiating a steady lustre all 
her own, which was the more charming because of her 
sweetness of disposition and her strength of character." 

The Governor had soon fallen into debt, as many 
of his predecessors had done, and his pecuniary em- 
barrassments were of the most v'exatious kind. He 
had strip])ed himself for the government, and could 
not even command a salar)-. 

In a letter to Swift under date of March 14, 1713, 



A nccstral Sketches. 

he wrote: "This is the finest air to live upon in the 
universe ; and if our trees and birds could speak, and 
our Assemblymen be silent, the finest conversation 
also. The soil bears all thinos, but not for me. Ac- 
cording to the custom of tiie country, the Sachems 
are the poorest of the people. In a word, and to be 
serious, I have spent my time thus far here, in such tor- 
ment and vexation, that nothing hereafter in life can 
make amends for it." Again he writes to Dean 
Swift : " I thought in coming to this government I 
should have hot meals and cool drinks, and recreate 
my body in Holland sheets, upon beds of down ; 
whereas I am doing duty as if I was a hermit and 
penance accordingly ; and as I can not do that with a 
will, I believe in the long run that the devil will run 
away with me. Sancho Panza was indeed but a type 
of me, as I could fully convince you by an exact parallel 

between our administrations and circumstances 

The truth is, I am used like a dog, after having done 
all that is in the power of man to deserve better treat- 
ment, so that I am now (|uite jaded." Dean Swift 
himself had applied for some position in \"irginia, but 
probably after the grumbling of this Governor, had 
withdrawn his appeal, jiarticularly as difficulties had 
arisen out of Hunter's being a " High-Churchman," 
and several had resolved themselves into a plan to un- 
dermine the authority and compel the recall of Gov- 
ernor Hunter, and obtain the appointment of a good 
Churchman. But Hunter's frank and manly answer 



NicJiolas Bayard and His Times. 

to the accusations restoitd the confidence of the 
Lords of Trade, which it must be confessed was 
for a time shaken by the many libels brought against 
him. When hardest pressed for money, he was usu- 
ally in his wittiest mood, and often jocosely remarked 
that he expected to die in jail. He composed a farce 
called " Androbobus "— The Man -Eater— in which 
the clergy and the Assembly were so humorously ex- 
posed that the laugh turned against them in all cu- 
cles, and from the merriment thus provoked, grew a 
better liking for, and a more generous appreciation of, 
the Governor himself. Among those who formed 
the " Court Circle," as it was aptly styled, were the 
prominent families who were connected by marriage ; 
and in many instances doubly and trebly connected. 
Several families of Van Cortlandt, Philip, the second 
Lord of the Manor, Bayards (Rip Van Dams, 
who had married wnth the Bayards), Morrises, De 
Lanceys, De Peysters, Wattses, Gouverneurs, etc., 
etc., although it seems hardly necessary to keep in 
mind the list of the chief actors in these gay scenes 
prior to 1776. 

In 1776, Lady tlunter died after a short illness, 
and Hunter was so smitten by the afifliction that he 
never recovered his former cheerfulness during his 
stay in New York. Indeed, his subsequent failure of 
health, and consequent petition to the Lords of Trade 
to be allowed to return to England, was attributed to 
his great and hopeless sorrow for her loss. 



Ancestral Sketches. 

No Governor ever left with greater triumpli, or 
carried with him more substantial tokens of good-will 
and affection. He sailed in July, 1719, and the chief 
command of the province devolved upon Peter 
Schuyler, as the oldest member of the council. His 
short administration was marked by very few events 
of note. 

" In a few months Schuyler was relieved from execu- 
tive duties by the arrival of Governor Burnet. His 
advent was an event of special interest. Flags were 
flying, cannon speaking significant welcome, and the 
military in full uniform. It was a beautiful Septem- 
ber day, and the balconies of all the houses were filled 
with ladies, as the new Governor was escorted with 
stately ceremony to the City Hall to publish his com- 
mission. He was the son of the celebrated prelate. Bis- 
hop Burnet, and named William, for the Prince of Or- 
ange, who stood sponsor for him. He was a free-and- 
easy widower, large, graceful, of stately presence, digni- 
fied on occasions, but usually gay and talkative ; was 
esteemed handsome, and greatly admired by the ladies ; 
and some of the grave heads in high places were shaken 
dubiously. One gentleman wrote to Hunter : * We 
do not know how the fathers and husbands are going 
to like Governor Burnet, but we are quite sure the 
wives and daughters do so sufficiently.' He had been 
carefully educated by his learned father, who saw 
nothing in the youth but faint promise of moderate 
scholarship until he was twenty years of age, and was 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

so anxious on the subject that he had counseled with 
Sir Isaac Newton in relation to the best methods for 
traininp; so refractory a mind. William took a sud- 
den turn finally ; books became his delight, and he 
then incurred many a sharp rebuke for exceeding his 
income in their purchase. His early life was passed 
in tiic atmosphere of William and Mary's Court, and 
he was in constant intercourse with the most culti- 
vated and polished men of the age. He traveled ex- 
tensively, and became thoroughly conversant with 
the languages of the different nations of Europe. 
He possessed an exhaustless fund of humor and anec- 
dote, but was not always noted for the discrimination 
with which he made choice of friends. His brother 
Gilbert wrote to him shortly after he reached New 
York, in a strain of caution, advising him against be- 
ins; ' led l)y his genial and winning temper into too 
much familiarity, which might be turned to his great 
disadvantage.' fie was much pleased with the so- 
ciety of his new province, which compared favorably 
with that to which he had been accustomed. He 
met, within a week after his arrival, the lady whom he 
married the following spring. She was Anne Marie, 
the daughter of Abraham Van Home and Maria 
Provoost, a beautiful and accomplished young woman 
of eighteen summers. The Van Homes were an 
ancient and eminently respectable family of Dutch 
ancestry. The father of Mrs. Burnet, on the recom- 
mendation of the Governor, was appointed to the 



Ancestral Sketches. 

Council of New York, and held the office from 1722 
until his death in i 741." 

After the death of George I., George II. ascended 
the throne of England, and Burnet was removed from 
the government of New York to that of Massachu- 
setts and New Hampshire. Boston had heard of his 
scholastic attainments, and an agreeable reception 
was in store for him. He regretted the change, and 
it was deeply regretted by those who knew him best. 
A committee of gentlemen, among whom was the 
facetious Colonel Taylor, met him on the borders of 
Rhode Island. Burnet complained of the Xovi^^ graces 
which were said at the meals along the road, and 
asked when they would shorten. " The graces will 
increase until your excellency gets to Boston ; after 
that they will shorten till you come to your govern- 
ment in New Hampshire, after which you will find 
no grace at all," replied Taylor. 

He did not rule long over the New England colo- 
nies. He died in 1729, from a sudden illness caused 
by exposure. Then followed Governor Montgomerv, 
who died in 1731. He was regarded as amiable, and 
came as near inspiring respect and afTection as is pos- 
sible for any good-natured man of very moderate 
abilities. 

The government devolved upon Rip \"an Dam, 

the oldest member of the council. He was spoken 

of as " one of the people of figure," and. as acting 

Governor for thirteen months, was consistent in all his 
124 



Nicholas Bayard and His Times. 

acts, but quietly and resolutely maintained his views 
of right and justice, in all respects, until the arrival 
of the new Governor, Colonel Cosby, who had come 
over to make a fortune. He demanded one-half of 
the salary Van Dam had received, and proceeded to 
institute legal proceedings against him. After a short 
time Cosby so irritated his many opponents that they 
resolved to lay their grievances before the King. He 
was taken ill, however, in the course of a few months, 
and died in 1736. The people rather rejoiced over 
it, and thanked God fervently for having delivered 
them from an avaricious tyrant. The sympathy of 
the community was universally with Van Dam. He 
inspired confidence, and was a man of sterling sense 
and strong character, and gladly would he have been 
the choice of the people had he been permitted to 
occupy the post left vacant by the death of Gover- 
nor Cosby; but Clarke was sent out as the new 
Governor. 

His rule terminated ingloriously, and Admiral 
George Clinton arrived, who left after he had 
amassed a fortune. Nothing but a succession of 
names— for hardly could they be called " Gover- 
nors"— attest the little interest England took in her 
colonies. 

After Clinton, an insane man (Sir Danvers Os- 
borne) was sent out, and Chief-Justice De Lancey 
was commissioned as Lieutenant-Governor. The 

procession aceompanving Sir Danvers Osl)orne had 

125 



Anccitral Sketches. 

hardly passed into Broadway when the news of De 
Lancey's appointment created a tumultuous huzza of 
pleasure. He was the fourth and last native New 
Yorker who administered the affairs of the colonies 
under the Crown. The day after his inauguration, the 
new Governor complained of being ill, and said, wnth 
a smile to De Lancev, " I believe I shall soon leave 
you the government ; I feel myself unable to support 
the burden of it." In the evening a physician was 
summoned. At midnight he dismissed his servant, 
and just as the day liegan to dawn he went into the 
garden, which was surrounded by a high fence, over 
which he cast a silk scarf, tied at the opposite ends, 
and thrusting his head into the noose, threw himself 
from the elevation upon which he stood. About 
eight o'clock the city was stunned by the shocking 
intelligence that " the Governor had hanged himself." 
He had been found quite dead. His private secretary 
testitietl that he had once before attempted his life 
with a razor, and that the Marl of Halifa.x, in obtain- 
ing his appointment to the governorship of New 
"S'ork, hoped that the position would occupy his 
mind and alleviate his melancholv. Tlie jury found 
that he had destroyed himself in a moment of insan- 
ity. After much discussion, it was decided that, "as 
Sir Danvers was insane, his remains were as much 
entitled to Christian burial as those of anv man who 
had died in high fever." He was accordingly con- 
signed, with appropriate funeral ceremonies, to Trinity 



NicJiolas Bayard and His Times. 

church-yard, just one week from his landing in the 
city. 

The Lieutenant-Governor, De Lancey, assumed the 
governorship, and no ruler ever possessed a wider oi' 
more wholesome intiuence, and no chief-justice of the 
province ever gave such universal satisfaction as he 
did. His sudden death in 1760 was a great blow to 
the community. 

Sir Charles Hardy, the newly-appointed Governor, 
soon resigned ; then arrived Sir Henry Moore, fol- 
lowed by the Earl of Dunmore in 1770, and Sir 
William Tryon, his successor, in 1771, the last of the 
English Governors. 

He sailed with his family for Europe in 1774, and 
the government devolved upon Lieutenant-Governor 
Golden. 

The first Congress was held in that same year 
(1774), and the i6th of May, 1775, proved the im- 
mortal Congress year, that declared the proud Inde- 
pendence of America ! 



THE "TORIES " 

OF THE 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 



THE "TORIES" OF THE AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION.* 



" Of the reasons which influenced, of the hopes 
and fears which agitated, and of the miseries and 
records which are left of the Loyahsts— or, as they 
were called in the politics of the time, the ' Tories ' 
of the American Revolution, but little is known. The 
reason is obvious. Men who, like the Loyalists, sepa- 
rated themselves from their friends and kindred, who 
were driven from their homes and possessions, who 
surrendered the hopes and expectations of life, and 
who became outlaws, wanderers, and exiles— such 
men leave few memorials behind them. Their papers 
are scattered and lost, and, in most instances, their 
very names have passed from human recollection. 
Of many who were high in office, of many who were 
men of talents and acquirements, it is almost impos- 
sible to learn more than their names, or the single 
fact, that for their political opinions or offences, they 

were proscribed and banished Intelligent 

' Tories,' or Loyalists, when asked why they adhered 

* From Lorenzo Sabine's " History of the Loyalists." 

131 



Ancestral S/cch'/ics. 

to the Crown, have said that those who received the 
name of ' Tories' were at first, indeed for some years, 
striving to preserve order and the observance of 
rigliis of persons and property ; that many who took 
sides at the outset as mere conservators of the peace, 
were denounced by those whose purposes they 
thwarted, and were finally compelled, in pure self- 
defence, to accept of royal protection, and thus to 
become identified with the royal party ever afterward. 
Many were opposed to war on religious grounds, 
others were influenced by their official connections, 
were holding offices under the Crown ; many from 
ancestral prejudices and predilections ; others loved 
retirement, and would, had the Whigs allowed them, 
have remained neutrals ; some were old men, and 
their tenants and dependents went with the land- 
holders without inquiry, and as a thing of course, 
and very many thought the contest would soon end. 
.... A dread, too, of the resources and strength 
of England, and the belief that successful resistance 
to her power was impossible — that the Colonies had 
neither the men or the means to carry on war, and 
various other considerations actuated them, and the 
unprejudiced minds of this generation should be 
frank enough to admit this. 

" For their political opinions (to which all men have 
a right), they were proscribed. Among the banish- 
ed ones thus doomed to misery and disappointments, 
were persons whose hearts and hopes were as true 



The "Tories" of the Revohifion. 

as Washington's own ; there is no doubt of that — 
and if, as has appeared from the highest sources, the 
Whigs resolved finally upon revolution solely be- 
cause they were denied the rights of Englishmen, 
and not because they disliked monarchical institutions, 
the Tories — so called — may be relieved from the im- 
putation of being the only ' monarchy men ' of the 
time. 

"To say that the political institutions of New 
York formed a feudal aristocreiey, is to define them 
with tolerable accuracy — the soil was held by few, 
the masses were mere retainers or tenants, as in the 
monarchies of Europe. Nor has the condition of 
society been entirely changed, since the anti-rent dis- 
sensions of our own time arose from the vestige 

which remains Such a state of things was 

calculated to give the King many adherents. The 
fact agreed with the theory. Details may be spared. 
X'^ery many entered the service of the Crown, and 
fought in defence of their principles. Whole battal- 
ions, and even regiments, were raised by the great 
landholders, and continued organized and in pay 

during the whole struggle In fine. New York was 

undeniably the Loyalists' stronghold, and contained 

more of them than any colony in all America 

The children of the Loyalists complained because 
the offices, at the close of the war, passed from the 
'old families' into the hands of ' upstarts.' The de- 
nial that independence was the final object, was con- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

stant and general. To obtain concessions, and to pre- 
serve the connection with England, was affirmed 
everywhere, and John Adams, years after the peace, 
said : ' There was not a moment during the Revolu- 
tion, when I would not have given everything I pos- 
sessed for a restoration to the state of things before 
the contest began, pi'ovided zve could have had a suf- 
Jicieiit sec2irity for its continuance! 

" To restore the identical property of many who 
had suffered had become almost impossible. Much 
of it had been sold, or appropriated by ' Commis- 
sioners of Confiscation,' or divided among purchasers, 
and could only be wrested by plenary means from the 
present claimants. A number of Loyalists who were 
in England came to the United States, to claim res- 
titutions of their estates, but their applications were 
unheeded ; (and in many instances their own family 
names and papers were produced against their just 
claims). The 26th of March, 1784, was the latest 
period for presenting claims, but how unsuccessful 
were most of such applications." (Futile in most 
cases were the hopes of gaining redress in America, 
equally so the expectations held out, of restitution 
from England, and all uncertainty was soon at an end, 
and the " Tory " Bayards, for instance, made their 
homes in England at once. . . . There was no redress 
for " the proscribed " in America ; and the vast estates 
of the banished Loyalists were claimed by strangers). 
" Congress very probably instructed their commission- 



The "Tories" of tJie Revohitioii. 

ers to enter into no engagements respecting the Ameri- 
cans who adhered to the Crown, unless Great Britain 
would stipulate on her part to make compensation for 
the property which had been destroyed by those in 
her service. With this injunction, the commissioners 
found it impossible to agree, inasmuch as they deem- 
ed it necessary to admit into the treaty a provision 
to the effect that Congress should reeoinmend to the 
several States to provide for the restitution of cer- 
tain parts of the confiscated property ; that these 
claimants should be allowed a year to endeavor to 
recover their estates ; that persons having rights in 
confiscated lands should have the privilege of pursu- 
ing all lawful means to obtain them ; and that Con- 
gress should use its recommendatory power to cause 
the States to revoke or reconsider its confiscation 
laws. Congress unanimously assented to this ar- 
rangement, and issued the recommendation to the 

States, which the treaty contemplated It was 

not expected, by the British Government, probably, 
that the reconiinciidatio)i of Congress to the States 
would produce any effect. In 1778, and after the 
evacuation of Philadelphia, the urgent request of 
Congress to repeal the severe enactments against the 
adherents of the Crown, and to restore their confis- 
cated property, had been disregarded ; and a similar 
desire at the conclusion of hostilities, though made 
for different reasons, it could not have been supposed 

would be more successful. Indeed, the idea that the 

135 



Ancestral Sketches. 

States would refuse compliance, and that Parliament 
would be required to make the Loyalists some com- 
pensation for their losses, seems to have been enter- 
tained from the first. Lord Shelburne asserted that, 
' Without one drop of blood spilt, and ivithont one- 
fifth of the expense of a- years campaign, happiness 
and ease can be given to them in as ample a manner 
as these blessings ever had been bestowed upon them.' 
He could have meant nothing less by this language 
than that, by putting an end to the war, the empire 
would save both life and treasure, even though the 
amount of money required to place the Loyalists in 
' happiness and ease' should amount to some millions ; 
and the Lord Chancellor, it may be observed, hinted 
at compensation as a remedy, provided the ' recom- 
mendation ' of Congress should not result favorably. 
Besides, during the negotiation of the treaty, it ap- 
pears to have been considered by the commissioners 
on both sides, that each party to the contest must 
bear its own losses, and provide for its own sufferers. 
A number of Loyalists who were in England came 
over to claim restitution of their estates, but their ap- 
plications were unheeded." 

THE BAYARD " TORIES " OF NEW YORK. 

" When and how Nicholas Bayard (of whom I 
have so largely written) obtained the ' Weehawken 
Tract ' I do not know, but it was at an early date. 

On June lo, 1678, Governor Carteret, with the con- 

136 



The " Tories " of tJic Rcvohition. 

sent of the Freeholders of Bergen, granted to hun 
full power and authority to build, erect, and set up 
on the Water Ru)i of Weehawken a saw and corn 
mill (with certain restrictions). ('Winfield's Land- 
Titles of New Jersey.') He was believed to have 
inherited it from his wife's brother, Nicholas Verlet. 
By his will, dated May 7, 1707, Nicholas Bayard left 
his estate first to his wife, Judith Verlet Bayard, and 
afterward to his only child, Samuel, who married 
Margaret, the daughter of Stephanus Van Cortlandt. 
Samuel inherited the Weehawken Tract from his 
father, April 19th, 171 1, and purchased the Hoboken 
Tract from Hickman and wife, June 19th, 171 1. He 
left two sons : Nicholas 2d, who married the daughter 
of Peter Van Brugh Livingston, and Samuel 2d, the 
father of Samuel, Jr., and Stephen. I must record 
' The death of Samuel Bayard, only son of Nicholas 
and Judith (Verlet) Bayard, on Monday last, at an 
advanced age, and the next day was decently in- 
terred in the family vault. September 16, 1745.'" — 
New York Weekly Post- Boy. 

" He left two sons, Nicholas and Samuel, and 
' seven fair daughters.' Judith married Rip Van 
Dam ; Gertrude married Peter Kemble ; Margaret, 
James Van Home ; one a Jay ; one a Schuyler ; one 
a Livingston; one a De Lancey." — Copied from an 
Indenture dated April i, 1748. 

" Nicholas Bayard, 2d, lived on an eminence near 
Canal Street (' The Bayard Farm East'). Married 
* s ^ ■ ■ ''' 



Ancestral Sketches. 

a daughter of Peter Van Brugh Livingston. ' A 
young lady, very agreeable, and endowed with all 
the graces necessary for rendering the connubial state 
happy.'" — New York Mercury. 

Will dated 1760. Proved 1765. 

2d, Samticl Bayard. " In 1774, was engaged in 
a controversy with the proprietors of Lands, and, in 
behalf of himself and associates in New York, sub- 
mitted a memorial to the British Government, pray- 
ing to be put in quiet possession of a part of the tract 
called the ' Westenhook Patent.' He was the owner 
of the land now covered by the City of Hoboken ;* 
took a military commission, and was made Major of 
the ' Orange Rangers ' in Nova Scotia, under the 
Crown. Died, 1 784." — History of Loyalists. 

He left two sons, Samuel, Jr., and Stephen. 

Samuel Bayard, Jr. (son of Samuel Bayard), was 
British Secretary of the Province until the year 1776, 
when he was taken prisoner, and, upon the evacua- 
tion of the City of New York, after Gen. Lee took 
possession of it, was placed under arrest at the house 
of his relative, Nicholas Bayard, Jr. In the year 
1778 he was, with William Smith, the famed historian 
of New York and Chief-Justice of Canada, and Major 
Colden, eldest son of the late Governor Golden, 
ordered "beyond the British lines," leaving in the 
same sloop, " for refusing to take the oath of allegi- 
ance to the new State." 



Winfield's " History of Land Titles in Hudson Co., New Jersey. 

138 



The " Tories " of the Revohiiion. 

Estates confiscated. Will proved 1784. 

Stephen Bayarel (son of Samuel Bayard), born 
1700; married March 12, 1725, Alida Vetch, only 
child of Governor Samuel Vetch and Margaret, eldest 
daughter of Robert Livingston. Stephen Bayard 
was for three terms Mayor of New York City ; after 
I 747 his name was retained, with the word " omitted " 
added in italies. — Valentine's History. 

In his will, dated 1753, proved 1757, he styles 
himself of " Bergen Cy., East New Jersey, Yeoman," 
in a codicil " Gentleman," and mentions only his 
three children (Mrs. Bayard had died before him), 
"My eldest son William, my daughter Margaret, and 
my son Robert." " His sons, William and Robert, 
espoused the ' Tory ' side of the controversy in the 
American Revolution, and entered the Provincial 
army in Canada. William raised a regiment at his 
own expense among his tenants, of which he became 
the Colonel. Major Robert, who had been raised in 
the army, was made the Major of his brother's regi- 
ment. They served the cause they deemed the right 
one, lived some time in Nova Scotia, and at the end 
of the war went to England, where they became 
honored and well known, after the loss of their 
large estates in America. They both died in En- 
gland, Col. William in 1804, and Major Robert in 
1815." 

A ''Release " of Robert's part of his " Grandmother 
Vetch's personal estate to his brother William " lies 



Ancestral Sketches. 

before me. This I merely insert to prove the de- 
scent. " .... I, Robert Bayard, son of Stephen Bay- 
ard, Esquire, send greeting. Whereas, I am one of 
the legatees of my grandmother, Margaret (Living- 
ston) Vetch, lately deceased, etc., etc 29th 

July, 1763. 

" Sealed and delivered in the presence of us. 
" (Signed) Samuel Bayard. 

Samuel Bayard, Jr. 

" (Signed) Robert Bayard." 

All their estates were confiscated and claimed by 
strangers. 

Colonel William Bayard and Major Robert 
Bayard, 
Sons of Stephen Bayard, of New York, 
" Were owners of large estates in New York and 
New Jersey, which were confiscated at the com- 
mencement of the American War, and ' Bills of At- 
tainder ' were issued against them, and they left the 
United States, with their large families, for Nova 
Scotia ; Col. William Bayard taking with him quite a 
Regiment raised among his own tenantry. This 
Regiment was called the ' Orange Rangers,' which 
was afterward disbanded, and blended with the ' Nova 
Scotia Regiment,' under the command of the Duke 
of Kent, our present Queen's father." 

The " Bills of Attainder," says an excellent writer 
upon personal laws, " are exertions of those extraor- 



The "'Tories" of the Rcvohition. 

dinary legislative powers which ought only to be 
used on the pressure of real and urgent necessity, 
but never to be desecrated to the gratification of 
political resentments. The crime charged is ' an 
adherence to the enemies of the State,' and each, 
and any of them, who shall be found in any part of 
this State, shall be, and are declared guilty of felony, 
and shall suffer Death, as in cases of felony, without 
benefit of Clergy." What was this adherence ? 
Nothing more than living upon their own estates, in 
their own houses, within the British lines, with their 
wives and families. " Colonel Wm. Bayard's houses, 
out-houses, barns, and stables, at Hoboken and 
Weehawken, were burnt, and his property deso- 
lated." Major Robert Bayard, a gentleman bred in 
the army, had been appointed by Governor Tryon 
Judge of the Court of Admiralty. Both of these 
brothers died in England at advanced ages. 

Col.- William Bayard was born June i, 1729. and 
married Catherine, daughter of John McEvers, June 
13, I 750. Two of four of his sons entered the British 
army : Lieut-Co/, jfohn Bayard, originally Colonel in 
his father's regiment in Nova Scotia ; and Major Sam- 
ite/ Vetch Bayard, in the regiment of the Duke of 
Kent, at Halifax. Stephen, the eldest son, was made 
Governor of the Deccan in India, of which Deccana, 
in that province, " a city of Oriental magnificence," 
is the capital. He died there, unmarried, in 1804. 
Col. John Bayard, in 1790, entered the Belgian serv- 



Ancestral Skctclics. 

ice, and afterward the British army. He was com- 
missioned, in papers he left, as " Le Chevalier Jean 
de Bayard," in Belgium ; first as Gen^-ral-Majeur, and 
then as " Colonel du Regiment de Cavallerie, No. 
6," and afterward as "Colonel de Cavallerie, No. i, 
au service des Etats Belgique-Unis," in 1790-1791. 
He left two sons, Adolphus Moffat Bayard, Captain 
Fifteenth Hussars, and Edward Leopold Bayard, 
godson of the Duke of Kent, who gave him his 
name, and put him in the Life Guards when very 
young. Col. John Bayard died in London in 1806. 

Samuel J'etc/i Bayard (Col. William Bayard's 
youngest son) was made a Major at an early age by 
the Duke of Kent, at Halifax, and became very pop- 
ular with his Highness. In 1777 he had been recom- 
mended to Lord George Germain by Governor 
Tryon in New York, to succeed Colden as Surveyor 
of the Customs, etc., who wrote : " From the steady 
loyalty of his father, and the depredations made on 
his estates, and in consideration that his two sons 
are now in the Provincial service, I rest in absolute 
confidence that his Majesty will confirm my appoint- 
ment, in opposition to all solicitations whatever." 
The whole family received consideration ; and the 
kind, genial character of the Duke of Kent won 
every heart. " He was, however, a strict disciplina- 
rian, and on one occasion when a poor culprit was 
sentenced to receive a certain number of lashes, he 
appealed to his young Major to intercede for him, 



TJic "Tories" of the Revolution. 

who upon entering as early as practicable his High- 
ness' presence the next morning, was received with, 
' Bayard, you need not trouble yourself; he received 
his sentence an hour ago.' When his Royal High- 
ness left Halifax he gave my father his portrait, his 
valuable blood-horse, a superior English Cozu, and 
other presents. As a soldier, my father was always 
faithful to his King, and ready to prove his fidelity to 
the utmost. When the Nova Scotia Regiment was 
disbanded, he returned to the Wilds of Wilmot (Gov- 
ernor Vetch's estate), which he turned into a pleas- 
ant home for himself and family, and which from a 
Wild became a fine garden, abounding in every 
beauty. His father and family went to England, 
being afterward men of wealth and position." Col. 
William Bayard died at Southampton in 1804; his 
wife in 181 2; Major Robert B., ■3X'^d.\}n., 1816. The 
honored name of Governor Vetch has been perpetu- 
ated to the present day in three generations of his 
Bayard descendants. 

JViliiam Bayard, the third son of Colonel William 
Bayard, was sent from England to endeavor to re- 
gain some of the family property, but without success ; 
all was in the possession of strangers ; yet by un- 
daunted energy he soon became one of the leading 
merchants of New York, and maintained his high 
position until his death. He married (17S0) Eliza- 
beth, daughter of Hon. Samuel Cornell, of Newbern, 

N. C, member of the King's Council, whose estates 

143 



Ancestral Sketches. 

were confiscated and himself "attainted"; his family 
of five daughters coming to New York after their 
father's death, in 1781. 

1. Mary married Isaac Edwards, of Virginia. 

2. Susan married Henry Chads (Admiral R. N.) 

3. Sarah married Major-Gen. Matthew Clarkson. 

4. Hannah married Herman Le Roy, merchant, 
New York. 

5. Elizabeth married William Bayard, merchant. 
New York. 

These were all noted women from their positions 
and attractions, Susan, the second, being the most 
celebrated. Oddly enough, when in France a few 
years ago I sent for a Galigiiani to learn the news, 
when the first article that met my eye was a para- 
graph that I took the liberty to cut out, knowing that 
I was the only person in the whole French kingdom 
who was interested in it. The heading of the article 
was " New York a Hundred Years Ago." 

" The following interesting items are culled from 
dingy files of newspapers that amused and instructed 
the inhabitants of this city a century ago. They serve 
to lay before our readers such a picture of the past 
as may present to their contemplation those early 
times and by-gone days when New York was but a 
provincial town : ' We hear from Newbern that Col. 
Edmund Fanning, Secretary to his Excellency Gov. 
Tryon, was lately married to Miss Susan Cornell, a 
beautiful and most amiable young lady, daughter of 



TJic " Tories " of tJie Revolution. 

the Hon. Samuel Cornell, Esq., one of his Majesty's 
Council for the Province of North Carolina.' " Alas 
for the mutability of human hopes ! Col. Edmund 
Fanning reached Newbern to find that his ladyc fairc 
had married and gone to England with Capt. Henry 
Chads, R. N., and the disappointed lover had to re- 
turn to his post in New York. 

William Bayard soon endeared himself to a large 
circle of friends by the noted charm of his manner 
and his great generosity and exceeding worth. 
There is little to record of him after his arrival in 
New York until the early part of this century. His 
intimate friends were those of his own clique and posi- 
tion, and he soon became thoroughly Americanized, 
without taking any part, however, in " politics," 
although his greatly esteemed friends were, many of 
them, of that stamp. In those days "politics ran 
high," and the most bitter animosities were continu- 
ally cherished, and duels were fought upon the most 
trivial pretext. Bitter was the hatred of parties, and 
whole communities, as well in New York as else- 
where, were in a perpetual ferment of excitement. 
Amongst my grandfather's most respected friends 
were Clinton, Peter A. Jay, Lewis, and Hamilton, etc. 
The latter he had a particular friendship for. " His 
Scotch strength and French vivacity, his graceful 
manners and witty speeches, were a perpetual attrac- 
tion. As an individual. General Hamilton inspired 
the warmest attachment among his friends, and from 

145 



A nccstral Sketches. 

his fearless denunciations, more bitter liatred from his 
foes than any other man in New York history." 
Aaron Burr was the Independent candidate for Gov- 
ernor of New York. The Republicans nominated 
Judge Morgan Lewis. "The storm commenced 
forthwith. The newspapers were filled with disgust- 
ing personalities, and the war of words raged un- 
abated to the very day of the election. Burr's private 
character, which no one could honestly defend, was 
assailed in the most obnoxious manner. Morgan 
Lewis was elected by a large majority, and Burr at- 
tributed his defeat mainly to the powerful influence of 
Hamilton, who had always spoken of Burr as a dan- 
gerous man. He had no faith in him. He regarded 
him as thoroughly unprincipled, reckless, cool, and 
desio-ning in his private as well as his political career, 
and never hesitated to express that opinion." .... 
Some letters from the pen of Dr. Charles D. Cooper 
during the election were published, containing the 
two following paragraphs: "General Hamilton and 
Judge Kent have declared that they looked upon Mr. 
Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to 
be trusted with the reins of government," . . . . " and 
I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion 
which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." 
It was some weeks after the election that these came 
under Burr's notice, but he immediately resolved to 
make them the excuse for forcing Hamilton into a 
duel. Wm. P. Van Ness was the bearer of Cooper's 
146 



The " Tories " of the Revolution. 

printed letter to Hamilton, with a note from Burr 
himself " demanding an acknowledgment or denial 
of the use of any expressions which would warrant 
Cooper's assertion." Hamilton had not before that 
moment seen Cooper's letter, but he perceived a set- 
tled intention of fixing a quarrel upon him. It was 
quite out of the question for him to make the dis- 
avowal "of any intention, in any conversation he 
might have ever held, to convey impressions derog- 
atory 'to Col. Burr's honor." The challenge was 
finally given, Judge Nathaniel Pendleton acting for 
General Hamilton, and Wm. P. Van Ness for Col. 

Burr •' It was a bright summer morning (July 

II, 1804) that these two political chieftains stood be- 
fore each other. The place where they met was the 
singularly secluded grassy ledge at Weehawken, 
which had been the scene of so many deadly en- 
counters. It was many feet above the waters of the 
Hudson, and no foot-path existed in any direction. 
Every precaution was taken to prevent discovery." 
On the fatal morning Burr and his friends arrived 
half an hour before Hamilton, and ordered their boat 
moored a few yards down the river. Hamilton's boat 
was seen approaching at precisely the moment ex- 
pected. My grandfather's (Wm. Bayard's) country- 
seat was immediately opposite to the New Jersey 
shore, and he was aroused at daybreak by his servants 
with the information that two horses, saddled, were 
in the stable, and that the little pinnace had been re- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

moved from the shore. He hastened down, with a 
strong field-glass, to await further events. The fol- 
lowing letter from Dr. David Hosack, Gen. Hamilton's 
attending surgeon, tells the result of the fatal meet- 
ing: 

Attgtist 17///, 1804. 
To William Coleman, Ed. Evening Post, 

Dear Sir: — To comply with your request is a 
painful task ; but I will repress my feelings while I 
endeavor to furnish you with an enumeration of such 
particulars relative to the melancholy end of our be- 
loved friend, Hamilton, as dwell most forcibly on my 
recollection. When called to him upon his receiving 
the fatal wound, I found him half sitting up, support- 
ed in the arms of his second, Mr. Pendleton. His 
countenance of death I shall never forget. He had 
at that instant just strength to say, "This is a 
mortal wound, Doctor," when he sank away, and 
became to all appearance lifeless. I immediately 
stripped off his clothes, and soon, alas ! ascertained 
that the direction of the ball must have been through 
some vital part. His pulses were not to be felt, his 
respiration was entirely suspended, and upon laying 
my hand on his heart and perceiving no motion there, 
I considered him as irrecoverably gone. I, however, 
told Mr. Pendleton that the only chance for his re- 
viving was immediately to get him upon the water. 
We therefore lifted him up, and carried him out of 

the wood to the margin of the bank, when the barge- 

148 



The " Tories " of the Revoludon. 

men aided us in carrying him into the boat, which 
immediately put off. During all this time I could not 
discover the least symptom of returning life. I now 
rubbed his face, lips, and temples with spirits of 
hartshorn, applied it to his neck and breast, and to 
his wrists and hands, and endeavored to pour some 
into his mouth. When we got, as I should judge, 
some fifty yards from the shore, some imperfect 
efforts to breathe were, for the first time, manifest; 
in a few moments he sighed, and became sensible to 
the impression, of the hartshorn, or the fresh air of 
the water. He breathed ; his eyes slightly opened, 
wandered, without fixing on any object ; and, to our 
great joy, he at length spoke. " My vision is indis- 
tinct," were his first words. His pulse became more 
perceptible, his respiration more regular, and his 
sight returned. I then examined the wound to know 
if there was any dangerous discharge of blood, but 
upon slightly pressing his side, it gave him pain, and 
I desisted. Soon after recovering his sight, he hap- 
pened to cast his eye upon the case of pistols, and 
observing the one he had had in his hand lying on 
the outside, he said : " Take care of that pistol ; it is 
undischarged and still cocked ; it may go off and do 
harm. Pendleton knows (attempting to turn his head 
toward him) that I did not intend to fire at him." 
" Yes," said Mr. Pendleton, understanding his wish, 
" I have already made Dr. Hosack acquainted with 
your determination as to that." He then closed his 

I4g 



Ancestral Sketches. 

eyes, and remained calm, nor did he say much after- 
ward, except in reply to my questions. He asked 
me once or twice how I found his pulse, and told me 
that his lower extremities had lost all feeling. I 
changed the position of his limbs, but to no purpose ; 
they had entirely lost their sensibility. Perceiving 
that we approached the shore, he said: "Let Mrs. 
Hamilton be at once sent for, and let the event be 
gradually broken to her, but give her hopes." Look- 
ing up, he saw his friend, Mr. Bayard, standing on 
the shore in great agitation. He had been told by 
his servants that General Hamilton, Mr. Pendleton, 
and myself had crossed the river together, and too 
well he conjectured the fatal errand, and foreboded 
the dreadful result. Perceiving, as we came nearer, 
that Mr. Pendleton and myself only sat up in the 
stern sheets, he clasped his hands together in the 
most violent apprehension ; but when I called to him 
to have a cot prepared, and he at the same moment 
saw his poor friend lying in the bottom of the boat, 
he threw up his eyes, and burst into a flood of tears. 
Hamilton alone appeared tranquil and composed. 
We then conveyed him as tenderly as possible up to 
the house. The distress of this amiable family was 
such, that till the first shock was abated, they were 
scarcely able to summon fortitude enough to yield 
sufficient assistance to their dying friend. Upon our 
reaching the house, he became more languid. I gave 
him a little wine and water. When he recovered his 



TJie "Tories" of fJic Revolution. 

feelings, he complained of great pain in his back ; we 
undressed him and laid him in bed, and darkened the 
room. I then gave him a large anodyne, which I 
frequently repeated. During the first day, he took 
upward of an ounce of laudanum, and tepid anodyne 
fomentations were constantly applied. Yet his suf- 
ferings were, during the whole day, almost intolera- 
ble. I had not a shadow of a hope of his recovery, 
and Dr. Post, whom I requested might be sent for 
immediately upon our reaching Mr. Bayard's house, 
united with me in this opinion. General Rey, the 
French Consul, invited the surgeons of the French 
frigates in our harbor, as they had had much experi- 
ence in gunshot wounds, to render assistance. They 
immediately came, but, to prevent his being disturb- 
ed, I stated to them his situation, described the nat- 
ure of the wound, and the direction of the ball, with 
all the symptoms that could enable them to form an 
opinion. One of the gentlemen accompanied me to 
the bedside, but the result was but a confirmation of 
the opinions of Dr. Post and myself During the 
night he had some imperfect sleep, but the next 
morning his symptoms were aggravated, attended, 
however, with a diminution of pain. His mind re- 
tained all its usual strength and composure. But his 
fortitude was sorely tried when his children, seven in 
number, were brought into the room. His utterance 
forsook him, and after one look, he closed his eyes 
again, until they were taken away. " My beloved 



Ancestral Sketches. 

wife and children," were always his expressions. As 
a proof of his extraordinary composure, let me add, 
that he alone could calm the frantic grief of his wife. 
"Remember, my Eliza, you arc' a Christian,'' were 
his repeated expressions with which he frequently ad- 
dressed her. His words, and the tones in which they 
were uttered, will never be effaced from my memory. 
About two o'clock, as the public well know, he ex- 
pired. 

Your friend and humble servant, 

David Hosack. 

" By nine o'clock on the morning of the fatal i ith 
of July news of the duel had reached the city ; a bul- 
letin appeared, and the pulse of New York stood 
still at the shocking announcement. People started 
and turned pale as they read. Men walked to and 
fro tearfully. Business was almost entirely sus- 
pended. Everything was forgotten except the fame 
and services of the victim. Bulletins hourly sent 
kept the city in agonizing suspense. All party dis- 
tinction was lost in the general sentiment of sorrow 
and indignation ' Cruelly murdered, unjustifia- 
bly sacrificed,' was the cry of the multitude. The 
seconds were severely censured. The absurdity of 
the sacrifice of such a life to maintain the ' honor ' of 
a profligate like Burr was condemned by every one. 
When his intimate friends were admitted to him, 
Hamilton was all gentleness, and greeted them Avith 



The " Tories " of the Revohitio)i. 

expressions of love and affection ; those who entered 
his room were generally of a religious character, and 
by kind and sympathizing ministrations soothed his 
last hours. My grandfather sent immediately for his 
brother-in-law, Gen. Clarkson, one of Hamilton's 
most intimate friends. As soon as he approached he 
threw his arms round Gen. Clarkson's neck with 
every expression of endearment, and both these 
brave men wept like infants. The one outlived the 
other some fifteen years, but could never speak of 
the death of his friend without a burst of tears. Rev. 
Dr. Mason visited him at his request, and Bishop 
Moore administered the sacrament and remained 
with him until his death, and it is said that but for the 
testimony of these two eminent clergymen there 
would never have existed a word of legal evidence 
that would have committed Burr. With both of 
these witnesses Hamilton conversed freely, exclaim- 
ing, ' I met him with a fixed determination to do him 
no harm, and I forgive all that has happened.' It 
was w^ell understood that Hamilton abhorred the 
practice of duelling. The last words from his pen, 
the night before the encounter, were a reiteration of 

his opinions on the subject When the death of 

Gen. Hamilton was finally reported a cry of execra- 
tion upon his murderer burst from the lips and heart 

of the multitude All the flags of the shipping 

were ordered at half-mast, the Bar met in profound 
grief and agreed to wear mourning for six weeks ; 

153 



Ancestral Skctclies. 

the different societies, the military companies, the 
Corporation of the City, with Mayor De Witt CHnton 
at its head, passed resolutions of deep sorrow, and 
agreed to wear mourning. The whole city was in 
grief. Even the once partisans of Burr made it a 
point to display their respect by appearing at the 
funeral. The body of the lamented victim was re- 
moved from Mr. Bayard's house to that of John B. 
Church, his brother-in-law, in the city, and the fu- 
neral ceremonies were conducted by the Cincinnati, 
which had lost its illustrious chief, in Old Trinity ; 
while minute guns from the artillery in the Park and 
at the Battery were answered by the French and Brit- 
ish ships of war in the harbor, as the immense pro- 
cession moved on. Gouverneur Morris, with the four 
sons of the deceased by his side, delivered a brief but 
thrilling oration in memory of his slaughtered friend. 
And when dust was lovingly consigned to dust in 
Trinity Churchyard, and the parting volley had been 
fired over the statesman's grave, the vast crowd dis- 
persed in silence and in tears, each one conveying to 
his home a sense of profound personal sorrow and 
bereavement." — Mrs. Lamb. 

The further life and career of the wretched mur- 
derer is a lesson indeed to future generations. 
" Burr was in public sentiment a murderer, and his 
name was spoken with a hiss of horror and disgust. 
The coroner's jury, after ten or twelve days of inves- 
tigation, brought in a verdict that ' Aaron Burr, Vice- 
154 



The ''Tories" of the Revolution. 

President, was guilty of the murder of Alexander 
Hamilton, and that William P. Van Ness and Nathan- 
iel Pendleton were accessories.' The astonishment 
of Burr was beyond expression. He had anticipated 
temporary excitement, ' which would soon pass over,' 
never dreaming that the fatal shot which destroyed 
his great rival was to extinguish his own ambitious 
projects and plunge him into life-long disgrace ; and 
with fearless, insolent self-possession he had not only 
executed his purpose, but had opened the ground be- 
neath his own feet, and left his hated rival (Jefferson) 
in undisputed possession of the field. From the day 
of the duel Burr ceased to be a political leader ; from 
that day his Nemesis was constantly pursuing him, 
ever at his side, to molest him through the rest of 
his humiliating career. His letters to his daughter, 
Mrs. Alston, written at that time, are full of disgust- 
ing platitudes and avowals that would discredit any 
sane man. He barely alludes to Hamilton's death, 
but writes to her on the day after it: 'If any male 
friend of yours should be dying of eiuuii, recommend 
to him to engage in a duel and a courtship at the 
same time.' Disappointment and disgrace always 
attended him." "During the years iSo6 and 1807 he 
engaged in ' Treasonable Designs ' against Mexico, 
and was arraigned and tried in Richmond, Virginia, 
and imprisoned in the penitentiary there for some 
months. His acquittal was the result of the difficulty 
found in proving overt acts, and the Government was 



Ancestral Skcfchcs. 

advised ' to desist fi-om further prosccitt ion! " — Mat- 
tliczv L. Davis. 

" He went forth a free man, while his conduct was 
like that of a criminal fleeing from justice. He lay 
concealed in the houses of some friends in New York, 
and, under an assumed name, went to Europe, with 
the passage money borrowed from Dr. Hosack." "In 
foreign lands he was treated with great insult and 
indignity, often without a franc to pay for his living, 
and scorned by all. Mr. Jonathan Russell, then 
Charge d' Affaires at Paris, thus writes to him, after 
his application for a passport to return home : ' The 
man who evades the offended laws of his country, 
abandons, for the time, the right to their protection. 
This fugitive from justice during his voluntary exile, 
has a claim to no other passport than one which shall 
enable him to surrender himself for trial, for the of- 
fences with which he stands charged. Such a pass- 
port Mr. Russell will furnish to Mr. Burr, but no 
other.' In the winter of i.Sio and iSii, being cut 
off from remittances from America, it appears from 
his journal that he suffered sad privations from the 
want of money. ' Nothing from America, and really 

I shall starve Borrowed three francs to- day. 

Four or five little debts keep me in constant alarm — • 
all together, no more than two louis. When at 
Dcnans thought I might as well go to St. Pelagie ; 
set off, but recollected I owed the woman who sits in 

the passage two sous for a cigar, so turned about to 
156 



The ''Tories" of the Revolution. 

pursue my way by Pont des Arts, which was within 
fifty paces ; remembered I had not wherewith to pay 
the toll, which was one centime, had to go all the 
way round by the Pont Royal, more than half a mile.' 
He at length reached England, where he was de- 
tained five months, being very low in funds, when he 
was at length enabled to sail for America, and ar- 
rived in New York just four years after his departure 
from there. The following extract from his journal 
shows that he left England without a feeling of re- 
gret : ' I shake the dust off my feet. Adieu, John 
Bull ! Insula inhospitabilis ! as you were truly called 
1, 800 years ago.' " — Matthezo L. Davis. 

Shortly after his arrival, his daughter Theodosia, 
the idol of his life (the sole redeeming trait in his char- 
acter being his affection for her), was never heard of 
afterleaving Charleston harbor on a contemplated visit 
to him. Either the vessel was lost at sea, or fell into the 
power of pirates, with no after-trace to tell the story. 
It never was ascertained how she perished. P^or 
some time after this event, he lived in New York, 
and even married a rich wife, who soon after sepa- 
rated from him, and he eventually died at Staten 
Island, unwept, unhonored, and alone. His grave 
was unrecognized for some years, when one night, 
by stealth, as it were, a stone was placed at its head, 
recording his name, by some friendly, yet unknown, 

hand. 

157 



THE GROWTH OF THE CITY 
OF NEW YORK FROM 1626. 



THE GROWTH OF THE CITY OF NEW 
YORK FROM 1626. 



"Never had a city grown and flourished as i\^c'7f 
Amsterdam had done, since the short period when 
Peter Miniut, in 1626, had purchased Manliattan 
Island from its Indian proprietors for the paltry sum 
of sixty guilders, or twenty-four dollars, by which the 
title to the whole island, containing about twenty-two 
thousand acres, became vested in the West India 
Company. An Indian war had prevailed for several 
years, and at the conclusion of the war in 1645, it 
was computed that there were in this city not more 
than one hundred men, exclusive of the Company's 
officers and servants, when the fourth and last Dutch 
Governor, Petrus Stuyvesant. arrived, whose arbi- 
trary character fortunately carried him vigorously 
through every obstacle, and things assumed a new 
aspect. 

"The growth of the city at once commenced, and 
the era of his administration is full of important inci- 
dents. To establish some regularity with regard to 
the streets was the new Governor's primary object, 
with which a survey of the town of New Amsterdam 
was ordered in 1654. In 1656 the survey was com- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

pleted, and the city was laid down upon a map, and 
confirmed by law ' to remain from that time forward, 
without alteration,' With respect to the condition of 
the island, beyond the immediate limits of the city, 
there were a number of farms under cultivation, but 
the greater portion of the island lay without enclos- 
ures, used as commons for the running of cattle. A part 
of the city adjacent to our present [City Hall] Park 
was fenced in and appropriated to the pasturage of the 
cows belonging to the inhabitants of the town. These 
were driven forth in the morning through the gates 
of the city, along the present Broadway and through 
Pearl Street and Maiden Lane, and were returned to 
their owners in the evening. The first church built 
in the city was erected in 1633, in the middle of a 
block between Broadway and Whitehall Street." — 
Valentine' s Histoiy of Neiv J "ork. 

In a short time the growth of New York, as it 
was soon called, was perfectly incredible, and, in 
spite of adverse circumstances of every kind, that 
most eventful century in the world's history — the 
eighteenth — saw the dawning of the coming great- 
ness, which a celebrated writer of those times said 
of us : " You are the advanced guard of the human 
race ; you have the future of the world in your 
hands." As the French say, " Cela va sans dire. ' 
The creation and regulation of streets form a chap- 
ter of interest and importance in the history of a 
metropolis. While the grave discussion of non inter- 



The Groivfh of the City. 

course was agitating every mind, and foreshadowing 
the most serious consequences, new roadways were 
springing into existence, and by-paths and alleys 
striking new levels or new orbits, and growing like 
mushrooms in the night. In the midst of the strug- 
gle to obtain appropriations from the Government for 
defences, and the general feeling of insecurity per- 
vading New York City — the shining mark for a for- 
eign foe — the labor of grading hills and elevating 
valleys went forward with great spirit, and the minutes 
of the Common Council teem with reports ot com- 
missioners and survej-ors, and with resolutions for 
opening and elongating streets, until the city was 
actually blockaded by the British. Broadway was 
graded below the stone bridge, and for some distance 
above, and Spring Street was marked out and houses 
built in certain parts of it, while yet nothing but a 
small sluggish stream of water marked the site of 
the broad Canal Street of to-day. The point where 
the canal rivulet united with the Hudson River was 
sketched one winter's morning in the early part of the 
century by Alexander Anderson, the first wood en- 
graver in America, and the scene represented is in 
the most striking contrast with that of the same 
locality at the present day. The habitable portion of 
the city had crept up the Bowery as far as Bond 
Street. Various schemes had been discussed of dis- 
posing of the Collect, or "Fresh Water Pond," and 

Canal Street had been laid out on paper by compe- 

163 



Ancestral Skctclics. 

tent engineers as many times as there were months 
in the calendar. 

Difficulties of a scientific nature interposed, and 
the year 1 809 was well advanced before the tangled 
meadows and wild grass began to disappear. " All 
that was romantic in scenery and prepossessing in 
cultivated grounds immediately above Canal Street 
was c[uickly doomed. The city was on the march, 
and every form of hill and dale and pleasant valley 
must be sacrificed. From the Bayard mansion, on 
the summit of the high point of land between Grand 
and Broome Streets, the views — ^just before the edi- 
fice was built downward, so to speak — embraced a 
curious variety of suggestive scenes. The valley of 
Canal Street, at its foot, had been transformed into a 
busy thoroughfare, no longer presenting a pastoral 
picture with streams of water flowing through it into 
both rivers ; that on the east linding its way over the 
low lands ; to the north and north-east some half a 
dozen villas, including those of the Stuyvesants, met 
the eye in peculiar contiguity with intermediate fel- 
lowship of every description, scattered along the 
neighborhood of the Bowery road ; while in the dis- 
tance the Hudson and East Rivers, the magnificent 
Bay, and the shores and heights beyond, completed 
as fair a prospect as could be found on either con- 
tinent. The entrance-gate to the l^ayard country- 
seat was on the Bowery road, and the location of the 

private avenue called Bayard's Lane was nearly on 

164 



The Grozi'f/i of the City. 

the line of Broome Street until torn away by the 
cartmen." Before this period the Bayard vault had 
to be vacated, and its honored tenants removed ; the 
receptacle itself in its deserted condition having even 
been claimed as a residence by an old hermit, who 
lived there for some years, and was helped by sev- 
eral who believed his story of a descent from some 
noble family in England, until he was at last found 
dead in these sacred precincts. In the anticipation 
of the great future for real estate, lots had been sold 
fronting on Broadway, and some few buildings had 
been erected. 

The other farm of Nicholas Bayard, known as the 
" West Farm," comprising more than one hundred 
acres, and bounded on the north by Amity Lane and 
on the east by Broadway, extended irregularly south- 
west to McDougall Street. Having been mort- 
gaged, and fallen into the hands of trustees, it was 
laid out in lots and streets and sold in parcels. " The 
phalanx of levellers, with its army of pickaxes, stood 
back appalled at the strong, firm, bold front which 
the Bayard Hill on the east presented. It seemed 
invincible. But the assault was finally made; the 
citadel yielded. As for the real-estate owners, they 
were solaced by the rise of property. Fortunes 
grew, while dwellings, stables, flower-gardens, fruit- 
orchards, grassy lawns, summer-houses, lovers' walks, 
and finely-shaded private avenues tumbled promis- 
cuously into the mass of worthless ruins, and pos- 



165 



Ancestral Sketches. 

terity was enriched. The humorous etching of John 
P. Emmet, Professor of Chemistry in the University 
of Virginia, showing the condition of the Bayard 
house during the jubilee of destruction, which he 
designates as 'Corporation Improvements,' will be 
regarded with a smile of incredulity and a twinge of 
painful reminiscence by all those who have witnessed 
the demolition of their earthly idols, ' with the appro- 
bation of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty, 
in Common Council convened.' The sketch was 
made from near the corner of White .Street and 
Broadway, looking toward Canal Street, and, how- 
ever exaggerated, is a clever illustration of the con- 
fusion of aftairs consequent upon removing eminences 
in the herculean endeavor to perfect the site of the 
great city of New York of to-day. Streets were 
pushed through a block or two in length one year, 
and allowed to rest the next. .Springs and rivulets 
impeded progress, and were finally choked into sub- 
ordination to the laws, and buried without ceremony. 
Litigations of all kinds arose, questioning the vast 
extent and complexity of the powers assumed by the 
' Corporation,' and all the laws of old tiays were set 
at naught, which had decreed that the city should re- 
main as it was then laid out, ' without alteration.' " 

The growth of " Manhattan Island " in every di- 
rection was incredible, although the country-seats of 
the wealthy inhabitants at the commencement of this 
century were what iwiv would be considered quite 



The Groii'th of the City. 

" down town." The village of Greenwich, which was 
then the upper part of the Island and is now the heart 
of the Ninth Ward, had the preference. The De- 
lanceys were among the early proprietors of this prop- 
erty. As its wilderness was subdued, it became a broad 
landscape of hills, dales, and woodlands, and through it 
flowed a stream called in Colonial days the Manitou. 
On the North River shore, near the present Fifteenth 
Street, was the residence of Sir Peter Warren, Ad- 
miral in the British navy, who had married Susanna, 
a daughter of the Delancey family. He thus ac- 
quired a large estate. The chief road which led to 
the Warren estate was the old Greenwich road along 
the North River shore, now West Twenty-first 
Street. After the fall of Gen. Wolfe at the capture 
of Quebec, Admiral Warren had chosen an important 
corner on the northern boundary of his estate, and a 
monument to Wolfe and other English officers was 
erected there called the " Obelisk." The rural drive 
through Greenwich Lane to visit it made the drive a 
favorite one, and ran in a straight line west from 
Washington Square. On the river shore was the 
country-house of William Bayard, now Fourteenth 
Street. To that mansion Gen. Hamilton was taken 
after the duel with Burr. 

Streets, however, soon invaded the fields, and 
frame cottages appeared at intervals. During the 
war of I Si 2, encampments and cantonments of 

troops occupied the vacant lots, and the rural beauty 

167 



Ancestral Sketches. 

was soon destroyed. In 1S13 Mr. Baj'ard's lovely 
home at Greenwich was leased, and became a large 
hotel, called the Mansion House, and a more distant 
one was purchased in Westchester Co., where he 
died in later years. His homes, in both city and 
country, were the resorts of all that was refined, 
noble, and cultured in this city's annals. Himself the 
perfect host and type of the perfect gentleman, sin- 
gularly handsome and commanding in appearance in 
his height of over six feet, stood, what he was, 
"one of Nature's noblemen." 

As these sketches were chiefly prepared for my 
children, and for those whom I can trust for the love 
and interest they take in all that concerns our Bayard 
branch of the family, I will state now the bitter sor- 
rows of my grandfather at this period. With his 
deep, affectionate nature and keen sensibilities they 
almost crushed him, and for man)' years he could not 
rally under them. His second daughter, " Kitty," 
one of the "beautiful Bayards," the wife of Duncan 
P. Campbell, had just died in her youth and loveli- 
ness, when his eldest daughter's health began to fail. 
She was his loved daughter Susan, the wife of Ben- 
jamin Woolsey Rogers ; and, in his anxiety and deep 
distress, he coincided with her husband and physi- 
cians, and urged a change of climate, in the hope that 
she might be benefited by the sea voyage and a resi- 
dence for the winter in the South of France. 

In October of 18 14 she embarked with her party 
168 



Tlic Grozoih of tlic City. 

in a vessel under the command of Captain Robinson, 
a well-known nautical officer of that day. My 
mother's private physician, Dr. Edward Bibby (still 
living, wonderful to relate, and genial and handsome 
and polished in manner), Miss Bayard and my 
uncle, Robert Bayard, my nurse, and myself accom- 
panied them. It was at a time when England, as far 
as she could, assumed the control of our waters, and 
Captain Robinson decided to proceed up Long Island 
Sound instead of going through the " Narrows." My 
grandfather Rogers was staying at his country-seat, 
" Schepan's (corrupted into Shippan) Point," and it 
was agreed that the house there should be illumi- 
nated, to attract their attention as they passed at 
night, and that the Princess of Orange, our vessel, 
should throw up a rocket to make herself observed. 
My uncle, Francis B. Winthrop, wrote afterward to 
my father the most touching account of the scene. A 
large party of relatives had assembled to show their 
sympathy with my grandmother, apprehending in this 
sad case, as many of them did, the worst. My father's 
uncle, President Dwight, the celebrated theologian, 
was of the number, and with the weeping circle on 
the shore, as they saw the signal, knelt among them, 
and commended the party and the precious invalid to 
God's care and keeping, interceding for her life and 
health, until the vessel disappeared. 

The Princess, proud in her array of white sails and 
flags, sailed on until she arrived off New London, 

i6g 



Ancestral Sketches. 

when a heavy shot across her bows stopped her. 
Admiral Hotham was in command there with a large 
fleet. All were astounded, and the captain sent to 
inquire the meaning of it. The boat returned with 
the arrogant English answer, " that the Admiral never 
transacted business on Sunday, but that on Monday 
he would attend to it." This being on Sunday morn- 
ing, they had only to submit. On Monday a depu- 
tation arrived to examine the ship's papers. One was 
wanting to make things en rl-gle. W'hat was to be 
done but to return to New York and procure it. A 
heavy sky indicated storm, and the sad partings had 
been gone through with. They reached " Throg's 
Neck" again, to the amazement of everyone, and 
merely found that some unimportant paper had been 
left behind. No one went to the ship, although the 
gentlemen of the party visited their friends. After 
the delay of a day or two they sailed, congratulating 
themselves that they had escaped a furious storm 
that had raged through the nights, which was long 
remembered, and reached New London again. 

My father and Mr. Bayard took the document to 
Admiral Hotham, who immediately returned the visit, 
stating his obligations and most peremptory orders 
for having acted as he had done, but greatly grieved 
at the delay he had occasioned. He offered his own 
physician, and anything he could do or send, for my 
mother's comfort or convenience, and his kindness 
and sympathy sensibly affected my father, who dwells 



The Growth of the City. 

upon it with feelings of great gratitude in his journal, 
which 1 have. 

The voyage was at first pleasant, and all went on 
well, and the sanguine hopes of the party seemed 
well founded ; but it was not to be, and my mother 
died when near the English coast. It was my grand- 
father's vessel, and the passengers instantly acqui- 
escing, the Captain directed his course to Southamp- 
ton, the residence of the Bayard family in England, 
and the members responding on the instant to my 
father's letter of appeal, a longline of mourning coaches- 
and-four reached the wharf before the ship arrived, 
and we were at once taken to their homes and hearts. 
My mother's grandfather, Colonel William Bayard, 
and his wife had been interred in All Saints' Church, 
in Southampton, among the crypts in the family 
vault beneath the church, and there my beautiful 
mother was placed, in her twenty-ninth year. The 
quaint church of " All Saints," at Southampton, En- 
gland, is now, as it was in 1814, very simple in char- 
acter, no decoration or adornment having ever been 
bestowed upon it, and the many Bayard tablets on 
the walls forming the most conspicuous features with- 
in it. To these my father added a beautiful one to 
m)' mother's memory, which we greatly admired there 
some ten years since. In several of the renovated 
cathedrals I saw monuments by the same sculptor 
(Bacon), probably erected at the same time, as pains 
would have been taken to procure the best artist. It 



171 



Ancestral Sketches. 

is placed in the chancel, and is a beautiful work of 
art. The couch upon which the recumbent figure 
lies is truly artistic in design, and the drapery dis- 
posed in a very graceful manner. She was very 
handsome, and this is an attempted likeness, with 
upturned eyes, and one hand raised as if in wonder, 
as she is said to have died. After visits to kind 
friends, within a few weeks, my father and party pro- 
ceeded to the Continent, which then was wild with ex- 
citement over the troubles brought everywhere upon 
it by Napoleon, and they did not return to luigland 
until after the battle of Waterloo ; I, being too young 
a traveller, was left behind with my English relations. 
My father and American relatives paid a visit to 
Major Robert Bayard, at Bath, where he was living 
with his four unmarried daughters, who had devoted 
their lives to him. He was a very old man, though 
preserving his memory bright and cheerful to the last. 
I often imagine these two men, one so eager to in- 
quire about, the other so willing to communicate, all 
the great events that had transpired in the many 
years that Major Bayard had lived, since he had left 
his native country. His brother. Colonel William, 
had been dead fully ten years. 

In New York, changes had taken place, and the 
city was growing rapidly in power and importance, 
and in vast improvements. Party strifes were subsid- 
ing, and after the gloom which had weighed down 

the whole nation so long, our victories at sea had 
172 



The Groivth of the City. 

brought us the glory so dearly won, and a gleam of 
light suddenly illuminated the horizon. News, first 
from New Orleans, then from Ghent, created bound- 
less exultation. The tone of the British Government 
had changed ; as its troops were defeated in one place 
after another, and as its demands wefe relinquished, 
no further obstacles in the way of accommodation re- 
mained. A treaty of peace was signed by the com- 
missioners of the two nations on the 24th of Decem- 
ber, 1814, and immediately transmitted to London. 
It was ratified on the 2Sth of the same month by the 
Prince Regent. The ship Favorite arrived in New 
York, bringing the unexpected news, which tilled all 
hearts with the most profound joy. There was grat- 
itude all over the land, and especially along the mar- 
itime frontier, and the year 1815 opened with the 
fairest promise, and the whole people hastened to 
offer thanks not only for the relief from foreign war, 
but from the terrible impending cloud of internal and 
civil struggle. 

Peace and prosperity smiled all over the land, and 
America's great resources were soon developed. The 
war had interrupted public improvements of every 
description in the metropolis, but the talent, enter- 
prise, and genius of America now poured in, and 
all the nation quickly imbibed the spirit and emulated 
the example of the New York people, and the great 
city rushed forward on her grand career of prosper- 
ity. The corporation of the city appointed the 19th 



Ancestral Sketches. 

of February, after the President's ratification of the 
peace, as a day of prayer and thanksgiving, to be 
observed in all the churches of the city — and the re- 
ligious observances were of peculiar solemnity 

A general illumination of the city took place, and as 
soon as preparations could be completed, a " superb 
ball " was given on the 22d; Great Britain quietly 
abandoned her encroachments on American com- 
merce, and the right of search and impressment was 
heard of no more. — JMrs. Lamb. 

My grandfather, William Bayard, was intensely in- 
terested in the prosperity and growth of New York 
State, and with De Witt Clinton, his immediate friend, 
and many others of like stamp, the most expansive 
ideas were cherished by them all. " The national gov- 
ernment declined to furnish them any material aid. The 
thought of raising sufficient money in New York State 
was laughed at, as the delusion of a set of fanatics. De 
Witt Clinton's belief in the practicability of making 
a water-highway from the Atlantic ocean to the lakes 
was like an inspiration. He was not the originator 
nor the projector of the Erie Canal, but when the 
crude scheme took possession of his active brain, his 
judgment of its practical value was instantaneous, 
and he became the master-spirit to carry it success- 
fully forward. It was determined to hold a large 
meeting of influential gentlemen of the city, to meet 
in consultation concerning the much-desired canal. 
William Bayard was chairman of the meeting, and 



The Grozot/i of tJic City. 

John Pintard secretary, and De Witt Clinton prepared 
a memorial to the Legislature in favor of the Erie 
Canal. It was read with avidity. It appealed direct- 
ly to the interests of the city Hundreds were 

converted from rank skepticism as to its practicabili- 
ty The Legislature assembled in January, 

1815. '1 he memorial was soon presented. Intense 
feeling for and against it was awakened from the 
start. The fate of the bill hung for many days in 
the balance." "Among those who courageously and 
vigorously espoused its cause were Peter Augustus 
Jay, Stephen Van Rensselaer, William Bayard, Jacob 
Rutsen Van Rensselaer, Nathan Smith, Philip J. 
Schuyler, and others, who were appointed commis- 
sioners ; the Senate took it up on the i6th, and on 
the 17th it became a law, and twenty thousand dol- 
lars were appropriated for the necessary expenses of 
exploration. During the debates in 18 17, Stephen 
Van Rensselaer (the Patroon) sent in a proposition 
for undertaking the whole Erie Canal himself, so con- 
fident was he of the vast profits and advantages in 
prospect." The Erie Canal was completed on the 
26th of October, 1825. Thus the longest canal in 
the world was constructed within a period of eight 
and one-third years, in spite of all opposition. The 
manual labor had not ceased for a day since July 4, 
181 7. A celebration of the great event was pro- 
posed. The merchants and citizens generally re- 
solved to co-operate. William Bayard was elected 



Ancestral Sketches. 

to preside over the meeting, John Pintard was the 
secretar)', and William Walton Woolsey offered the 
resolutions. The entire State of New York was in 
commotion. The 4th of November was the day 
fixed for the union of the waters, and at ten o'clock 
precisely, the waters of Lake Erie were admitted 
into the canal, and the news was transmitted to New 
York City in an hour and thirty minutes, by the dis- 
charge of cannon posted along the route at regular 
distances. The sun rose in a clear sky on the morn- 
ing of the 4th of November, and New York City 
was awakened at its rising by the ringing of the 
bells and martial music, and the thunder of cannon. 
The fleet, comprising twenty-nine steam vessels, be- 
sides ships, schooners, barges, canal-boats, and other 
craft, moved toward the ocean at nine o'clock, and 
formed in a circle of three miles in circumference. 
The British armed vessels in the harbor saluted and 
cheered the squadron, and the military and forts 
saluted the vessels as they formed in line. The 
pageant was the most magnificent which America, 
and perhaps the world, had ever seen. The commit- 
tee of reception from the Common Council went 
out upon the fl'as/iiiiotoi/ to receive the guests, 
and, when within hailing distance, inquired where 
they were from, and what was their destination ? 
The reply came ringing over the waters: "From 
Lake Erie, and bound for Sandy Hook." A few 

moments later, the gentlemen of the deputation 
176 



The Grozoth of the City. 

stood in the presence of Governor Clinton, and a 
graceful and appropriate speech of welcome was 
made. The Washington took the lead, bearing the 
Mayor and corporation of New York, the clergy, the 
Society of the Cincinnati, army and navy officers, 
foreign magnates, and other distinguished guests. 
The safety barges Lady Clinton and Lady Van 
Rensselaer were attached to the steamboat Com- 
merce, and crowded with ladies in elegant costumes. 
The Seneca Chief bore two kegs filled with Lake 
Erie water, painted green, with gilded hoops. Clinton 
lifted one of these kegs high in the air, and, in full 
view of the assembled multitude, poured its contents 
into the briny ocean, saying : " This solemnity at this 
place, on the first arrival of vessels from Lake Erie, 
is intended to indicate and commemorate the naviga- 
ble communication which has been accomplished be- 
tween our Mediterranean seas and the Atlantic ocean 
in about eight years, to the extent of more than four 
hundred and twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, public 
spirit, and energy of the people of New York ; and 
may the God of the heavens and the earth smile 
most propitiously on this work, and render it sub- 
servient to the best interests of the human race." 

" Dr. Mitchell, following Governor Clinton, proceed- 
ed to pour the contents of a number of bottles, contain- 
ing water from all parts of the world, into the sea, 
as emblematical of our commercial intercourse with 
all the nations of the earth, and made a learned and 

177 



Ancestral Sketches. 

remarkable address. Ex-Mayor Cadwallader D. 
Colden, appointed to write a memoir on ' Canals 
and inland navigation,' presented his manuscript to 
Mayor Paulding, thus concluding the public cere- 
monies of this great day upon the billows." — Mrs. 
Lamb. 

It was during the summer of 1824' that La Fayette 
visited the United States by invitation of the Gov- 
ernment. He had no suspicion of the warm wel- 
come that awaited him. " Presently a long line of 
vessels appeared in sight, coming down the bay with 
flags flying. They approached and encircled the 
French ship. A deputation of eminent personages 
reached the deck of the Cadnitis and paid their 
respects to America's illustrious visitor — whose tears 
fell like rain as he received their unexpected con- 
gratulations, and learned of the plan for his public 
reception the next morning. 

" The corporation of the city, the Chamber of Com- 
merce, the Society of the Cincinnati, the officers of 
the army and navy, and a crowd of enthusiastic for- 
eigners, the next day assembled on Staten Island to 
meet and escort La Fayette to New York. The 
naval procession was one of exceptional interest and 
great beauty. The guns from the shore were an- 
swered from Fort La Fayette, and all the forts and 
vessels in the harbor. The hero was received at 
Castle Garden, which had been duly prepared for the 

reception, and with bared head he drove up in a 

178 



The Groiotk of Ihc Cily. 

carriage and four, throug-h Broadway, amid the 
shouts of the multitude. His stay in New York was 
one perpetual ovation ; honors and entertainments 
were poured upon him, to which he replied with the 
warmest expressions of gratitude. He departed 
from the city on his famous tour through the country 
on the 20th. Everywhere he was received as the 
truest of the whole nation, and rode with his head 
uncovered, acknowledging the perpetual huzzas of 
the populaces of the several towns and cities, with 
bows. Fetes, and entertainments of every descrip- 
tion, were showered upon him." — Mrs. Lamb. 

My grandfather accompanied him on many occa- 
sions, and his family attributed his decay of health 
to the great strain put upon him on these occasions. 
The year 1825 dawned upon a nation in anxiety; the 
Presidential contest absorbed all parties, and it had 
been long foreseen that a choice would be of the 
greatest and most obstinate difficulty, although no 
bitter animosity, as in former days, was shown. 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, the Patroon, had the honor, 
by giving the casting vote, of determining the elec- 
tion of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency of the 
nation. 

Mr. Bayard lingered through this year of excite- 
ment, and died in 1826, aged sixty-five years. I 
insert some notices among many, published at that 
time. " It becomes our painful duty to announce 
the death of William Bayard, Esq. He expired last 



Ancestral Sketches. 

evening at his country-seat in Westchester, after a 
lingering illness of many months. He has for a long 
series of years been one of our most honored cit- 
izens and most eminent merchants, and will be loner 
remembered for his many excellent qualities. Dis- 
tinguished alike for his public spirit and his private 
virtues, he has for many years been endeared to all 
who had the happiness of his acquaintance and 
friendship. His hand was ever 'open as the day, to 
melting charity,' and few have closed lives so useful, 
or left behind them characters so unspotted, and in 
all respects so free from reproach." — Commercial 
Advertiser, Sept. 19, 1826. 

" To THE Editor of the Evening Post. 

" Sir : — When men eminent for services in public 
stations breathe their last, public testimonials of sor- 
row and respect follow them to their graves, and 
why should not services of another and more heart- 
touching character, call forth similar demonstrations 
for those who have been distinguished for all those 
charities that adorn our nature, and who have sus- 
tained for a long course of years a well-merited 
reputation for integrity, urbanity, and general useful- 
ness ? 

"This idea is suggested by the report with which 
the city is filled, of the death of Mr. William Bayard. 
This gentleman has long been considered as a model 
of mercantile integrity and correctness. He has 



The Grpivth of tlic City. 

been at the head of many of our most valuable 
charitable institutions, and has given a rare example 
of industry and perseverance in honorable enter- 
prises ; he was a merchant whose business was 
conducted with the strictest probity, and yet on 
the most liberal scale. Such men are rare, and when 
they are removed, it is fit that a community like ours 
should show by some extraordinary mark of respect, 
the estimation in which they were held ! I think 
our merchants should meet in a body at the Ex- 
change, or some other public place of mercantile 
resort, and accompany his remains to the grave, and 
that the Chamber of Commerce, and other bodies 
over which he presided, should give some corporate 
testimonial to his memory. These ideas are from 
one who has been taught from his youth to venerate 
the name of William Bayard, although in nowise 
connected with him, and are submitted to you as 
likely to induce you to give some similar suggestions 
through the medium of the Press." 

Nezv York Chamber of Commerce. 
The members of this Corporation are invited to 
attend the funeral of William Bayard, Esq., from his 
late residence, No. 6 State Street, to-morrow after- 
noon at five o'clock, as a tribute of respect to the 
virtues and character of their late esteemed Presi- 
dent. By order of 

Robert Lenox, Vue-Presidettt. 
John Pintard, Secretary. 



Ancestral Sketches. 

Dank for Savings, and many others. 

The Trustees of this Institution are Hkewise in- 
vited to attend the funeral of their late respected 
President, at the same place and hour. 

September 19, 1826. 

He was buried from Trinity Church, and laid to 
rest in the family burying-place in that Church-yard. 
A large concourse of warm, devotedly attached 
friends, attended his funeral. William Bayard left 
two sons, and three daughters, — William Bayard, 
who died 1875 ; and Robert Bayard, who died 1877 ; 
Harriet, the wife of Stephen Van Rensselaer, Jr. ; 
Maria, the wife of Duncan P. Campbell, and Justine, 
the wife of General Joseph Blackwell. The Bayard 
name of the Nicholas branch is now extinct — the last 
of General John Bayard's branch in England, Col- 
onel Edward Leopold Bayard, also dying in the 
same year (1877). 



GOVERNOR-GENERAL 

SAMUEL VETCH, OF NOVA 

SCOTIA. 



GOVERNOR-GENERAL SAMUEL VETCH, 
OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



Before giving the sketch of Governor-General 
Vetch, proper mention must be made of his mother, 
Mrs. William Vetch, one of the celebrated " Ladies 
of the Covenant," drawn chiefly from her own diary, 
and from the memoirs of her husband, Rev. William 
Vetch, written by himself In the reign of Charles 
II. the fidelity of the Presbyterians (non-conformists, 
as they were termed) was put to a more severe test 
than it ever had been before. But this fiery ordeal, 
the faith, the devotedness, and the heroism of the 
pious women of Scotland, stood. We find them in 
every station of life maintaining their fidelity to their 
conscientious convictions, in the midst of sufferings 
the most severe. With the ejected ministers they 
deeply sympathized ; and women of all the ranks of 
life — the Baronesses, the Countesses, the Marchion- 
esses of the day— evinced, with those of the lower 
classes, the deep concern they felt, and encouraged 
their husbands and sons to stand by their Church in 
her struggles for freedom, regardless of the threats 

and tyranny of those in power. The zeal with which 

185 



A nccsfral Sketch cs. 

the Marchionesses of Hamilton and Argyle, and 
Ladies Boyd and Culross maintained the good cause, 
appears from the brief notices of their lives which 
have been transmitted to our times, and to these 
might be added the names of many other ladies in 
high life. Never, indeed, did a severer period of 
trial pass over the Church of Scotland, than during 
this persecution, lasting for nearly a whole genera- 
tion. 

Marion Fair lie, the subject of this sketch, "who," 
as the editor of her diary well observes, " endured 
an amount of domestic affliction and vexatious per- 
secution, in many cases more trying than martyrdom 
itself," was born in 1638, a year famous in the Pres- 
byterian Church in Scotland. Her father was de- 
scended from an ancient family of the house of 
Braid, near Edinburgh. " She early acquired that 
deep sense of the things of God which she exem- 
plified to the close of a long life." On the 23d of 
November, 1664, she was united in marriage to Rev. 
William Vetch, son of Mr. John Vetch, the non-con- 
forming ejected minister of Roberton. Mr. Vetch 
had been for some time chaplain to Sir Hugh Camp- 
bell, of Calder, but being hostile to prelacy, was not 
allowed by the Bishop of the diocese to retain that 
position. He accordingly went South, and, staying 
some time with his father at Lanark, became ac- 
quainted with the young lady whom he soon married. 
Her friends endeavored, but without success, to dis- 



Mrs. Vetch. 

suade her from the marriage, urging, among other 
reasons, the worldly straits to which, from the dis- 
courao-ino- aspect of the times, she might be reduced, 
but she resolved to trust in God's promises tor all 
needful temporal blessings, and said, " These prom- 
ises were remarkably made good to me, in all the 
many places of my sojourning in diverse kingdoms, 
which I here mention for the encouragement of 
others." Scarcely two years after her marriage, the 
storm of persecution burst upon her and Mr. Vetch, 
separating them from each other, and ultimately 
forcing them to seek refuge in England. Mr. Vetch, 
who was a bold and daring man, was prevailed upon 
by the minister of Irongray and others, who came to 
his house at the Westhills of Dunsyre, to join with 
that party of the Covenanters, who, provoked by the 
cruel conduct of Sir James Turner, rose in arms, and 
were defeated by the King's forces at Pentland-hills 
in 1666. This was the origin of the multiplied dan- 
gers to which they were subjected during a series of 
many years. Mrs. Vetch had no scruples of con- 
science as to the propriety of the appeal which the 
Covenanters, in this instance, made to arms ; she at 
least wished them all success. 

On the night of the defeat she was entertaining 
several of the officers who had fled to her house for 
refuge, and weeping lest her husband, of whose fate 
they could not inform her, should have been killed. 

On that same night, Mr. Vetch made his escape, and 

1S7 



Ancestral SkctcJies. 

came to a herdsman's house in Dunsyre common, 
within a mile of liis own house, sending his horse 
home to his own stable, and desiring the herdsman 
to inform Mrs. Vetch of his safety. He lurked sev- 
eral days thereabout, and at last retired into England. 
Two days after the battle Mrs. Vetch was thrown 
into alarm by a party of Dajziel's troop, which that 
General, on learning where Mr. Vetch resided, had 
sent to his house to search for him ; but to her great 
comfort, he was not to be found, though in the near 
neighborhood, and escaped falling into their hands. 
It was gratifying to them that the troopers did not 
get his fine horse, the servant having led him out to 
the moor. Mrs. Vetch was often greatly annoyed 
by parties of soldiers who came to her house to 
search for her husband, and on such occasions it 
was usual for a party of them to surround the house 
to prevent his escape, should he be within. They 
ordinarily paid their unwelcome visits during the 
night, and at whatever hour they came, they rudely 
commanded her to rise and open the doors, threaten- 
ing that they would otherwise force an entrance. 
Hearing of the harassing annoyances to which his 
wife was subjected, Mr. Vetch, dangerous as it was, 
came from Newcastle to see his family, and advised 
her to give up the farm and take up her residence in 
Edinburgh. In compliance with his desire, she lived 
with her children in the capital for several years. In 
1672 they joined Mr. Vetch in England, who had 



Mrs. Vetch. 

been prevailed upon by the non-conformist residents 
of Reedsdale, in Nortliumberland, to give them the 
benefit of his stated ministry. Her two sons, Wil- 
Ham and Samuel, she took with her. In those days, 
when no better means of travelling were adopted, it 
was the custom to convey children in creels upon 
horseback, and by this slow and inconvenient mode 
of travelling she took her two boys to their new resi- 
dence. They were often obliged to change their 
place of abode, and were subjected to various trials 
and indignities. At one time, a Mr. Bell, whose fate 
we will mention hereafter, came with some men to 
apprehend Mr. Vetch, who w^as holding a meeting in 
his own house. One of the justices of this party 
came to the front gate, while another appeared at the 
back gate. They rudely broke into the house, and, 
with pistols loaded, searched for the object of their 
hatred. Baffled in their attempts to find him, con- 
cealed as he was in the lining of a large window, 
which had been prepared for the purpose, they left, 
advising Mrs. Vetch to allow her husband to preach 

only to herself and her children Shortly after this, 

when Mr. Vetch had been removed to Edinburgh, 
the Mr. Bell before alluded to, one of the most viru- 
lent of his persecutors, met with his death under very 
appalling circumstances. When he heard of Mr. 
Vetch's apprehension, he said: "This night he will 
reach Edinburgh, and be hanged to-morrow, accord- 
ing to his deserts, for how could such a rebel as he 



Ancestral Sketches. 

expect to escape the just judgments of God." On 
returning- from Newcastle, he'stopped at Pontilland, 
and continued drinking there until about ten o'clock 
at night. The curate, with whom he was, urged him 
as the night was dark and stormy, ''and the river Pont, 
which he had to cross, was much swollen, to remain 
until the next day, and, to detain him, took his watch 
from him and locked up his horse in the stable. But, 
as if impelled to his fate, he would not be persuaded, 
and getting his horse, proceeded on his journey. 
Two days after, he was found, standing dead, up to 
his arm-pits in the river Pont, near the side of it, the 
violence of the frost having frozen him in ; his hat 
and gloves were on, and his boots were much worn 
from his struggles to free himself. " The whole 
country about [writes Mrs. Vetch, in her diary], was 
astonished at this dispensation, and often said to me 
there would be no more trouble to my husband again, 
but I bless the Lord I was not in the least lifted up 
with it." 

Another attempt to secure her husband proved 
more successful in 1689. Major Oglethorpe, with 
his dragoons from Morpeth, arrived early in the morn- 
ing, and, without awaiting an answer to his summons, 
he instantly broke in pieces the window, but finding 
iron bars in his way, broke into the hall door, and, 
getting candles lighted, apprehended Mr. Vetch, and 
carried him prisoner to Morpeth jail, where he was 
detained some time. During the time that this scene 



Mrs. Vetch. 

was enacting, Mrs. Vetch, though not free from 
alarm, yet persuaded that man could do nothing 
against them but what God permitted, conducted her- 
self with a degree of composure which even sur- 
prised the rude and heartless soldiery. Her hus- 
band was soon removed from Morpeth to Scodand, 
and when he was lying a prisoner in the Talbooth of 
Edinburgh, she set out with a heavy heart through 
a heavy storm of snow, in compliance with a letter 
she had received from him, leaving her children be- 
hind her. 

Within a few days of her arrival, an order came 
from the King, to hand him over to the Judiciary 
Court, that intimation might be made to him of the 
sentence of death and high treason, which had been 
pronounced against him in his absence, near twelve 
years before. This threw her into a state of great 
agitation of mind, for Providence now seemed to con- 
tradict the assurance she thought she had received 
from God, that her husband's life would be preserved. 
But by faith and prayer, her fears were gradually 
allayed, nor were her hopes disappointed. About 
the close of July, Mr. Vetch was liberated by virtue 
of the King's pardon, indulgence, and indemnity. 
This sore trial had ended, but owing to Mr. Vetch's 
forfeiture, and to their repeated removals from one 
place to another, occasioned by the Prelates and their 
emissaries, they were obliged to borrow large sums 

from their friends, and, in addition to her other vir- 

191 



Ancestral Sketches. 

tues, Mrs. Vetch was distinguished for her kind- 
hearted hospitality, and her house, both during the 
period of her residence in Scotland and England, was 
a resting-place for the wandering and weather-beaten 
of Christ's flock. Among those who betook them- 
selves for shelter to her hospitality, was the Earl of 
Argyle, who suffered in 1685. At the close of De- 
cember, 1 68 1, that nobleman, having on the 20th of 
that month escaped from the Castle of Edinburgh, 
where he lay imprisoned, under sentence of death, 
directed his course to Stantonhall, with the view of 
being conducted on his way to London by Mr. Vetch, 
whose fidelity, shrewdness, and intrepidity particu- 
larly recommended him for such a service. On 
Argyle's arrival, he was from home, and his wife sent 
some of her servants or friends about the country in 
search of him ; and on his return urged him to do 
his best in conducting their noble friend in safety to 
London. While in London a scheme for planting a 
Scottish colony in Carolina was started, where they 
could enjoy, without disturbance, that civil and relig- 
ious freedom which was denied them in their native 
land. "I thought," she adds, " in my old days — now 
in the forty-fourth year of my age — I would have no 
heart for such a voyage, for if I went there, I would 
hang my harp upon the willows, when I remembered 
Scotland, but if it was God's will I would go." Ob- 
stacles were thrown, however, in the way of this 
plantation. A discovery of the " Rye-house Plot," 



Sainted Vetch. 

in which her husband had been concerned when in 
London, having been made, a force came to the house 
to seize him. He narrowly escaped, and, after hiding 
himself for several weeks, succeeded in getting over 
to Holland, where, soon after, the two eldest sons, 
Samuel and William, joined him.* 

Samuel Vetch was born on the 9th of December, 
166S, at Edinburgh. His motiier had devoted him 
and his brother William to the Christian ministry, 
and sent them to Holland to prosecute their studies 
at the University of Utrecht ; but both the young 
men expressed their decided preference for the mili- 
tary profession, and when the war with France broke 
out, they served with the army in Flanders, " and 
learned to swear" — allegiance to their sovereigns. 
Meanwhile, a considerable number of English and 
Scotch refugees in Holland were forming a scheme 
for overthrowing the government of James H., who, 
since the death of Charles II., had ascended the 
English throne, and was resolutely bent upon estab- 
lishing absolute power in the State, and popery in 
the CImrch. The Duke of Monmouth was to invade 
England, and the Earl of Argyle, Scotland ; but the 
ill-conducted undertaking proved unsuccessful — the 
Earl of Argyle was taken on the 17th June, 1685, 
and executed on the 30th of that month. The Duke 
of Monmouth was taken on the 8th July, 1685, and 
executed on the 15th of that month. 

* Appendice VI. 



Ancestral Sketches. 

SAMUEL VETCH, GOVERNOR OF NOVA SCOTIA. 

Samuel Vetch was a born soldier. Bred in the 
midst of alarms, with his inherited nature from both 
parents, how could it have been otherwise ? He won 
his way to fame and honor, as all records of him 
prove ; and died wept and honored, at over ninety 
years of age, in London. His pious mother had de- 
signed him for the Church, and had sent him with his 
brother to Holland to pursue their studies at the 'Uni- 
versity of Utrecht. Both brothers, however, prefer- 
red a military profession, and enlisted in the army 
then serving in Flanders. James H. had succeeded 
his brother Charles II. in England, but in exile the 
"Non-conformists" continued to watch over the 
State affairs in "sorry Scotland," and discovered in 
William, Prince of Orange, of whose character they 
entertained the highest admiration, the future de- 
liverer of their country. James II. 's scheme of toler- 
ation ior D!sse?!tci's was, under the disguise of benefit- 
ing them, to afford relief to Papists, and ultimately 
to pave tlie way for the establishment of popery. 
Happily, the Protestant Prince of Orange's under- 
taking was crowned with success. In England all 
parties rallied round him — a very merciful providence 
for Scotland, which, wasted by a persecution of 
twenty-eight years, was now lying under the iron 
wheel of despotism, crushed in spirit and hopeless of 
deliverance. " But England, in saving herself, saved 

Scotland." The brothers Vetch went ovei witli Wil- 
194 



■ ■ Samuel Vetch. 

liam of Orange in 1688. who was called to fill the 
throne of Jam^es II.— a revolution which, by more nar- 
rowly circumscribing, and more exactly defining the 
prerogatives of the Crown, conferred upon the sub- 
jects a degree of liberty they had never before enjoy- 
ed ; overthrew prelacy in Scotland, and ended the 
sufferings of these martyrs for conscience' sake. 
Young Samuel Vetch, full of fire and enthusiasm, 
devoted his life to duty— meeting reward in the 
confidence of the kings and queens, to whose service 
he devoted that life. William Vetch, his brother, 
held also a commission under William of Orange, 
and afterward, in 1699, was a lieutenant in Angus's, 
or the Cameronian regiment, and was severely 
wounded at the battle of Steinkirk. He was shot 
through the left cheek, an inch below the eye, and 
the bdl fell into his mouth. The two brothers went 
out as Captains of the forces of the Scottish colony, 
which was intended to settle the Isthmus of Darien, 
but the settlement came to a disastrous termination. 
Captain William died at sea, on his way home.* 

* ■• General Samuel Vetch was born in Edinburgh on the 9th Decem- 
ber :668 Was Councillor in the Scotch settlement at Danen in the 
year 1698. Removed to New York. Traded with Indians. In 1705, 
Commissioner to Quebec, with proposals for a treaty between Can- 
ada and New England. Imprisoned in Boston and fined £ 200. Vis- 
ited Eno-land in 1708. Proposed the seizure of Canada. Was bearer 
of the Queen's instructions for the expedition, which he laid before 
the Gov~ernment and Council in 1709. He retired to Rhode Island. 
In 1710 he was sent as Adjutant-General in the expedition against 
Port Royal, and was made its Governor after its capture. Afterward 
returned to EngX&nAr-Dic/ionary of American Biography. By F. 
S. Dr.\ke. '95 



Ancestral Sketches. 

I have before me, as I write, Governor Vetch's 
many commissions and instructions, which arc full of 
interest to those who care for such matters. His 
papers and private journal are clear and distinct, as if 
written yesterday. Later papers have been sent to 
me, wliich prove the utter falsity and inaccuracy of a 
garbled sketch of him prepared lately in a malignant 
spirit, seemingly. In the very book from which he 
pretends to quote, a severe denunciation escaped this 
master-mind of wisdom " against any person who 
should meddle with his private records." It is clear 
and legible to all eyes, and was duly signed and 
sealed. 

The First parchment I iiave, is : " Given under our 
Royall Hand and Signet, at our Court of Hampton, 
the /th day of August, i68g, and of our Reigne the 
first year," appointing Samuel Vetch Cornctt of 
Captaine John Hume, of Ninewclls, his Troupe in 
that our Regiment of Dragoons, in our Ancient 
Kingdome of Scotland. 

(Signed), William R. 

The Second : 

William and Mary. By the grace of God, King 
and Oucen of Scotland, England, ffrancc and Ire- 
land, Defenders of the ffaith, etc. To our trusty and 
well beloved Samuel Vetch, greeting we doe by these 
presents, nominate and appoynt you to be Captain- 
Lieutenant of our Right Trusty and well beloved 

John, Lord Lindsay, his own comi)anv. In tiiat our 
190 



Sannicl I'ctch. 

Regiment of ffoot in our Ancient Kingdome of 
Scotland, whereof he is also Colloncll. Vou are 
therefor carefully and dilligently to discharge the duty 
of Captain-Lieutenant of the Said Company. By 
exercising the same in amies l)oth to your inferir 
Officers and Soldiers, and keeping them in good 
order and discipline. And we doe require them to 
obey you as their Captain-Lieutenant. And yourself 
Lykewise exactly to observe and follow all such 
orders, directions, and Commands As you shall from 
time to time receive from Us, our privy Counsell of 
that our Kingdome, or the Commander in Chief of 
our forces there now, for the tyme being, your Col- 
lonell and Captain or any other your Superior officer, 
According to the rules and discipline of warr. In 
pursuance of the trust hereby reposed in you. Given 
under our Royall hand and Signet At our court att 
Kensingtoune the 15th day of ffebruary, 169.)^, and 
of our reign the 5th year. 

(Signed), William R. 

The Third: 

Anne by the Grace of God Queen of Great Brit- 
ain, France, and Ireland, defender of the Faith, To 
our trusty and well beloved Samuel Vetch, Esq^, 
Greeting. We reposing especial Trust and Confi- 
dence in your Loyalty, Courage, and good Conduct, 
do by these Presents, Constitute and appoint you to 
be Captain of our Independent Company in our Gar- 
rison at Placentia in Newfoundland. You are there- 

197 



A nccstral Sketches. 

fore to take the said Company into your care and 
charge, and duly to Exercise as well the Officers as 
Soldiers thereof in Arms, and to use your best en- 
deavours to keep them in good order and discipline, 
and Wee do hereby Command them to obey you as 
their Captain, and you to observe and follow such 
Orders and directions from time to time as you shall 
receive from Us, the General and Commander in 
Chief of Our Forces in Newfoundland for the time 
being, or any other your Superior Officer, according 
to the Rules and Discipline of Warr, in pursuance of 
the trust Wee hereby repose in you. Given at our 
Court of St. James, the Second Day of April, 1713, 
in the Twelfth year of our Reign. 

(Signed), Anne R. 

The Fojirth : 

Anne, by the Grace of God, Oueen of Great Brit- 
ain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., 
To our Trusty and Well-beloved Samuel Vetch, Esq^ 
greeting : We, reposing especial Trust and Confidence 
in your Loyalty, E.xperience and Courage, Do, by 
these Presents, constitute and appoint you to be Ad- 
jutant-General of all our fforces, employed or to be 
employed, in Our Service ; You are therefore care- 
fully and diligently to discharge the Duty of Adjutant- 
General, by doing and performing all and all manner 
of things thereunto belonging ; And we herebv com- 
mand all our Officers and Soldiers of our said fforces 
whom it may concern, to acknowledge and obey you 

i.;8 



Saymicl Vetch. 

as Adjutant-General, and you to observe— (The rest 
of the document and the date obliterated and worn 
off, but the signature distinct). 

(Signed), Anne R. 
The Fifth : 

George, by the Grace of God, King of Great Brit- 
ain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c.. 
To' our Trusty and Well-beloved Samuel Vetch, Esq., 
greeting : We, reposing especial Trust and Confidence 
Tn your Loyalty, Courage and Faithfulness, Do, by 
these Presents, constitute and appoint you Governor 
of our Province of Nova Scotia, or Acadia in North 
America, and of our Town and Garrison of Anapolis- 
Royall, within our said Province. You are therefore 
to take our said Province, Town, and Garrison into 
your care and charge, and diligently to discharge the 
Duty of Governor by doing and performing all and 
all manner of things thereunto belonging ; and we 
do hereby command all our Officers and Subjects 
within our Province, Town, and Garrison, to obey 
you as the Governor of the same. And you are to 
observe and follow such orders and directions from 
time to time, as you shall receive from Us, in pursu- 
ance of the Trust we hereby repose in you. Given 
at our Court of St. James, the Twentieth Day of Jan- 
uary, I 714-5. In the First Year of our Reign. 

(Signed). George R. 

"The short administration of Governor Ingolsby 
as Governor of New York was distinguished by an 



Ancestral Sketches. 

attempt to drive the French out of Canada. Such 
an enterprise had been long and earnestly desired by 
New York, but the want of harmony among the 
Colonies, and the backwardness of England, had thus 
far stood effectually in the way. Colonel Vetch, the 
son-in-law of Robert Livingston, finally brought the 
project to a crisis. He had some years before visited 
Quebec, and he had sounded the St. Lawrence River, 
so that he now was prepared to lay intelligent plans. 
The English ministry consented, on Colonel Vetch's 
application to Queen Anne, and promised to send a 
large fleet to aid the Colonists. Colonel Vetch 
recurned from England to Boston, and soon prevailed 
upon the New England Colonies to join in the 
scheme. He then visited New York, and perfected 
the arrangements. Nicholson, the former Lieutenant- 
Governor, was 'elected' Commander-in-Chief. Peter 
Schuyler went among the Iroquois, and persuaded 
them to take up the hatchet once more against the 
French. The Indian savages had been for some 
time maintaining a neutral ground between the two 
fighting nations, England and France, having entered 
into a treaty with the latter. The near prospect 
of getting rid of a troublesome and merciless foe 
to the North, filled every heart with joy. Commis- 
sioners of all kinds were appointed — the greatest 
activity prevailed, and all things were in readiness. 
New \'()rk had spent ^20,000. The army set out in 
fine .spirits, and marched through the wilderness to 



Sannicl Vetch. 

Lake Champlain. The Indians were under the com- 
mand of Peter Schuyler, their friend, in whom they 
always trusted, and all waited for the news of the 
British fleet which was to come to their assistance. 
The fleet never came. The disappointment was over- 
whelming. They waited for weeks. It seems that 
there had been a great defeat of the Portuguese, and 
the troops destined for Canada had been sent to their 
relief. But the news did not reach Vetch, Schuyler, 
and Nicholson, where they were camping in the 
woods and swamps, until September, and then the 
disgusted soldiers were sent home. Schuyler de- 
plored the failure of the expedition— he believed in 
the necessity of sharp measures against the French — 
and finally resolved to go to England and lay the 
subject before the Lords of Trade. To make his 
mission more effective, he took with him, at his own 
expense, five Indian chiefs. The whole Kingdom 
was stirred with curiosity and enthusiasm. The 
theatres and other i)laces of amusement were thrown 
open to amuse them. The Guards were reviewed in 
Hyde Park for their especial benefit. Queen Anne 
received them with the usual ceremonies, and the 
chief orator among them made a speech to the effect 
that the reduction of Canada was absolutely necessary 
to their free hunting, and that if the Great Queen 
was not mindful of her children of the forest, they 
would be obliged to forsake her country for other 
habitations. At the close of the interview, they pre- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

sented the Queen with a belt of wampum. Schuyler's 
protestations, with the presence of the Indians arrayed 
in their striking costumes, moved the nation to ])rom- 
ise to send an expedition against Canada." — Mrs. 
Lamb. 

" The expedition for the capture of Nova Scotia 
sailed from Boston Bay on i8th September, 1710, 
and after some fighting. Port Royal capitulated on 
the 29th. The other stations subsequently gave in 
their adhesion to the British Government, and at the 
treaty between France and England in 1713, Nova 
Scotia was finally added to the latter power, and the 
name of Port Royal changed to Annapolis Royal, in 
honour of Queen Anne, who made it a seat of gov- 
ernment, and named a council of the principal in- 
habitants for the management of the civil affairs of 
the Province. In i 714 Colonel Samuel Vetch was 
made Governor of Nova Scotia by George I. From 
that period to 1 749, Nova Scotia was neglected by 
England, but the crafty designs of the French to ac- 
quire by fraud what they could not obtain by force, 
drew the attention of the British public to the im- 
portance of their conquest, and offers of grants of 
land were made, and Halifax was soon erected by the 
new emigrants." — History of Nova Scotia, by R. 
Montgomeiy Martin. 

" The structures built in Halifax by the Duke of 
Kent when the Commander-in-chief there, do honor 
to his taste and judgment. The harbor which he 



Samuel Vetch. 

superintended has not a superior in any part of the 
world, and stands as a trophy of the late Duke's 
scientific skill. The dock-yard is one of the finest 
out of England." — R. Moiitgoinciy Ma)- tin. 

" The best of Nova Scotia is that part called Aca- 
dia (afterward Annapolis Royal, in honor of Queen 
Anne, by Governor Vetch), where a number of 
French had settled as early as 1664. Soon after, 
1749, perceiving the encroachments of the English 
upon them, they determined to remove to Canada, 
rather than run the risk of having their religion, to 
which they were devotedly attached, attacked, and 
their priests insulted, and themselves contaminated 
by intercourse with heretics. But the English, get- 
ting notice of their designs, seized upon those who 
had not yet gone, embarked them upon their ships, 
and transported them to the different parts of their 
English colonies, where the greater part died of vex- 
ation and grief" — L' Abbe' dc Robijic. 

This was some years after Governor X^etch had 
returned from Nova Scotia. He had applied for the 
Governorship of Virginia (as Dean Swift had be- 
fore him), the harsh climate of North America not 
suiting his family. His early Scotch predilections 
had soon brought him into the intimate acquaint- 
ance of the Livingston family, Robert Livingston, the 
son of his father's early friend, having taken up his 
abode here, and the joint sufferings of the two fami- 
lies in Scotland, seemed a natural bond of union be • 

203 



Ancestral Sketches. 

tween them in a foreign land. In another sense, it 
turned out so. Robert Livingston had attained 
wealth and importance, and his marriage with the 
young widow of Nicolaiis Van Rensselaer, with her 
rich dower, had augmented his fortune. I transcribe 
from a fly-leaf, copied from his old Bible : " I, Robert 
Livingston, First Lord of the Manor." " On the 
20th of December, 1700, my eldest daughter Mar- 
garet was married to Captain Samuel Vetch. The 
Lord give her His blessing and eternal peace. She 
was born December 5th, 168 1." We have amongst 
us, a fine portrait of Governor Vetch, in his steel 
armor, by Sir Peter Lely. Another one, by some 
American artist, of his wife and the little Alida, their 
only child, in her lap. The brave old Governor's 
portrait is a very fine one, with his soldierly-erect 
figure, and his handsome face, embrowned by expo- 
sure in the requirements of his military life. A red 
scarf relieves the stiftness of the steel armor, and is 
thrown across his breast to support his left arm, 
which possibly may have been wounded. With the 
exception of the ugly wig of Charles IL's time, it is 
a superb artistic effort. 

And now mention comes in of our ancestress, Alida 
Vetch, the daughter of Governor Vetch, and the wife 
of Stephen Bayard, the mother of the Tories, Colonel 
William and Major Robert Bayard, who went to En- 
gland, dying there at advanced ages in the years 1805 

and 181 5. Governor Vetch, after the death of his 
204 



Rev. John Livingstone, of Ancrnni. 

wife and daughter, and son-in-law, (will proved 1757,) 
went to England, where he died at a very old age, 
before his grandsons sought a home there. For four 
generations his memory has been perpetuated, and 
his name has been borne with honor and distinction 
to this day, by several of his descendants. (Ihat 
weighty article in a late " Review " ! That bringing 
up Aspasia and Ninon de I'Enclos to give weight to 
it ! What had they to do with Governor Vetch ? or 
his times ? or anything that concerned him ? This 
seemed to be the last weight upon the poor camel's 
back, and two of the editors, I hear, retired after it 
was inserted. I fear that it was too weighty for them, 
or perhaps that the char ni alluded to, had commenced 
its work.) Proud, noble old ancestor, Rcquiescat ! 

REV. J(.)HN LIVINC;ST()NE, OF AiNCRUM; 

Some account must be given of the Rev. beloved 
"non-such Mr. Livingstone," so celebrated in the 
history of the Scotch Covenanters, who, in his " Life 
of Himself," leaves the most interesting records of 
the persecutions of his times, in the cause of civil 
and religious liberty. The marriage of his eldest 
granddaughter in America, with General \^etch, and 
the circumstance of the Hon. Stephen \"an Rensse- 
laer (the Patroon), being the grandson of his eldest 
grandson, Philip Livingston, the first signer of the 
" Declaration of Independence," must not be over- 
looked in these biographical sketches. 



Ancestral Sketches. 

"The experience of this noble man (Rev. John 
Li\in,o;stone) is coexistent with that of the Vetch 
family, and the hardships they endured were shared 
together, both contending at the same era against the 
attempts of James VI. of Scotland, and Charles II. 
of England, to establish Prelacy in their kingdoms.* 
Mr. Livingstone was, when a young man, the Chap- 
lain to Lady Colross, one of those brave women who 
took her place among those who resisted the attempts 
made to wrest from the Church her own force and in- 
dependent jurisdiction, and force it under the entire 
control of the Crown. In his ' Memorable Character- 
istics,' Livingstone has given her a ])lace among the 
' professors of the Church of Scotland, who were 
eminent for graces and gifts,' and the fruits of Mr. 
Livingstone's ministry served to increase the high es- 
timation in which Lady Culross and many others 
held him. One of the principal places which they 
frequented for enjoying the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper, was Lanark, the minister of which parish was 
Mr. William Livingstone, the father of this celebra- 
ted John Livingstone, afterward of .Vncrum, ' whose 
love of learning and piety and suavity of manners 
were remarkable, and won for him universal regard.' 
It was not usual, it seems, in those times, to have any 
sermon on the Monday after dispensing the Lord's 
Supper, but (jod had given so much of His gracious 
presence on the foregoing days of that solemnity, that 

* Appendice VI. 
206 



Rev. John Livingstone, of Ancrum. 

the desire for a sermon became very general. Mr. 
John Livingstone being then chaplain to the Coun- 
tess of Wigtoune, though at that time not an or- 
dained minister, was, with very much ado, prevailed 
on to think of giving the sermon." 

From the "Life of Himself" we extract: "The 
only day in all my life, wherein I found most of the 
presence of God in preaching, was on a Monday after 
the communion, preaching in the church-yard of 
Shotts, June 21, 1630. The night before I had been 
in company with some Christians, who spent the time 
in prayer and conference. When I was alone in the 
fields, about eight or nine o'clock in the morning, be- 
fore we were to go to sermon, there came such a mis- 
giving of spirit upon me, considering my unworthi- 
ness and weakness, and the multitude and expectation 
of the people, that I was consulting with myself to 
have stolen away somewhere and declined that day's 
preaching, but then I thought I durst not so far dis- 
trust God ; and so went to sermon, and got good as- 
sistance, about one hour and a half, upon the points 
which I had meditated on, Ezekiel xxxvi. 25, 26. 
And in the end, offering to close with some words of 
exhortation, I was led on about an hour's time, in a 
strain of exhortation and warning, with such liberty 
and melting of heart as I never had the like in pub- 
lic all my life-time. Some little of that stamp re- 
mained on the Thursday after, when I preached in 
Kilmarnock ; but the very Monday following, in 



Ancestral Sketches. 

Irvine, when I was preaching, I was so deserted, that 
the points meditated and written, and which I had 
fully in my memory, I was not for my heart able to 
get them pronounced ; so it pleased the Lord to coun- 
terbalance His dealings, and to hide pride from man. 
This so discouraged me that I was resolved for some 
time not to preach, but they would not suffer me to 
leave Irvine till I preached the next Sabbath, to get 
(as they expressed it) amends of the Devil. I stayed 
and preached with tolerable freedom." And such was 
the effect that, as Mr. Flemming observes in his 
" Fulfilling of the Scriptures," " near five hundred had 
at that time a discernible change wrought on them, 
of whom most proved lively Christians afterward." 
" It was the sowing of a seed through Clydesdale, so 
as many of the most eminent Christians in that coun- 
try date their conversion from that day." It may not 
be uninteresting to quote some notice respecting this 
communion, given by Wodrow, the famed historian 
of Scotland. Of the day of the preaching at the 
Kirk of Shotts also, he says, April 24, 1710 : "This 
day being at Shotts, and discoursing with Mr. Law, 
the minister, he tells me that the sermon was in the 
west end of the church-yard. Another should have 
preached, but he felt indisposed, and that he heard 
that the first sensible motion among the people was 
this: In the time of Mr. Livingstone's sermon there 
was a soft showei" of rain, and when the people be- 
gan to stickle about, he said to this purpose, ' What a 



Rev. yoJin Liviiig stone, of A tie mm. 

mercy is it that the Lord sifts the rain through these 
heavens on us, and does not rain down fire and brim- 
stone, as He did upon Sodom and Gomorrah.'" He 
further adds : " That he afterward discovered Mr. Liv- 
ingstone in Holland, and conversing upon this com- 
munion, he told him that he was such a stranger to 
all the ministers there, that he thought to escape, and 
added, ' Brother, when you are strongly pressed to say 
anything you have not premeditated, do not ofifer to 
stop it — you know not what God has to do with it.' " 
Wonderful statements are made of the power of his 
eloquence, and of the vast crowds that pressed upon 
him, to hear him preach. The account of the circum- 
stances that led to his union with Miss Janet Flem- 
ming are so quaint and characteristic that I give them 
in his own words : " She had been recommended to 
me, and many had testified of her gracious disposi- 
tion. For nine months I had been seeking direction 
of the Lord. I might have remained longer in dark- 
ness had not the Lord provided an occasion for our 
conference. On my way to meeting, I foregathered 
with her, and consulted with her anent the text of the 
discourse I was to preach. I found her conference so 
spiritual that my mind was much cleared, and I saw 
that it was the Lord's will that I should marry her." 
He thus records his marriage : 

" In June, 1635, the Lord was graciously pleased to 
bless me with my wife, who, how well accomplished 
every way, and how faithful a yoke-fellow, I leave to 

209 



Ancestral Sketches. 

the memory of others. She was, for personal endow- 
ments, beyond many of her equals." Occasionally he 
quotes her; he thought her "as wise as she was 
beautiful." Of his worldly affairs he says, " I never 
was rich, I never was poor, I once owed a small sum, 
but I was soon able to repay it." He admits that he 
was not covetous, but he was much troubled with 
"idle and wandering thoughts." His " Life, by Him- 
self," is very odd and quaint ; and copied from the Wod- 
row MSS. and his own " Characteristics," are often de- 
tails of the times in which he lived, that would interest 
many. " I was from my infanc}^ bred with aversncs from 
Episcopacie and ceremonies. While I was in the College 
of Glasgow, in the year 1619 or 1620, that kneeling 
as the communion was brought in there, I being with 
some two or three of the young men of the College, 
sett down among the people at the table, and Mr. 
James Law, the pretended Bishop of Glasgow, com- 
ing to celebrate the communion, he urged all the 
people to fall down and kneel. Some did so ; we 
sat still. He came to us, telling us to kneel, or to 
depart. Somewhat, I spoke to him, but doe not 
perfectly remember what I said. It was to this pur- 
pose : ' That there was no warrant for kneeling, and 
for want of it, we ought not to be excommunicated 
from the table of the Lord.' He caused some of the 
people about us to rise, that we might remove, which 
we did." 

" In 1649, Livingstone was one of the Commission 



Rev. yohn Livingstone, of Aiicrniu. 

sent by the Kirk, to go to Breda, and invite Charles 
II. to be King of Scotland. He administered the 
oath, 'when Charles swore fidelity to the holv league 
and government, which he soon broke, with as little 
scruple as he had made it.' After a busy, devoted 
life to his people at Ancrum, he was persecuted for 
non-conformity, and sentenced under pain of death 
to leave the Kingdom within three months. He took 
refuge in Rotterdam, where he was followed by his 
wife and children. Many of his old congregation 
settled around him, and he was for some years the 
head of a parish again. Twice he attempted to reach 
America, the last time narrowly escaping shipwreck, 
when he returned to die at Rotterdam in 1672, be- 
loved as a man, and revered as a saint." " His wife 
and family returned to Scotland, where Mrs. Living- 
stone led a most adventurous life, as one of the cele- 
brated ' Ladies of the Covenant.' We know some- 
thing of his son, Robert Livingstone s, character from 
the records in his Bible, which is still in the posses- 
sion of his family. He was the eldest son of the 
celebrated preacher at Ancrum, of Scotland. The 
first record in the Bible is in English : ' Robert 
Livingstone, his Bible, sent by his mother from Rot- 
terdam.' Next follows the memorandum : ' This 
17th January, 1689^, began to read from this Bible 
the seventh time in my family.' The entries of mar- 
riages, births, etc., are in Dutch. He records his own 
marriage in these words : ' Was wedded to my well- 



A n cestra I Sketch cs. 

beloved help-mate, Alida Schuyler, widow of Dom- 
inie Nicolaiis Van Rensselaer, in the Presbyterian 
Church of Albany, America. May God be with us, 
and bless us.'" " His marriage with Alida, daughter 
of Philip, and sister of Peter Schuyler, and widow of 
Nicolaiis Van Rensselaer, connected him with the two 
most inlluential families of the Province." " Nicolaiis 
\^an Rensselaer was in Holland when the exiled 
Ciiarlcs II. was there, and instead of giving \\\\\\ pre- 
dictions, as some have stated, gave him a large sum 
of money to assist him in his exigencies. Charles 
gave him a gold snufi'-box, containing his portrait, 
set with brilliants, which is said to be in the family at 
the present time." When the King returned to En- 
gland, the Dominie accominmied the Dutch ambassa- 
dor \"an Gogh to London, as chaplain to the embassy ; 
and the King remembering his obligations to him, 
then gave him the snuff-box. After Van Gogh left 
London in 1665, because of the Dutch war. Van 
Rensselaer received Charles' license to preach in the 
Dutch Church at Westminster; was ordained a dea- 
con in the English Church by the Bishop of Salis- 
bury, and was appointed lecturer in St. Margaret's, 
Lothbury. He returned home, and married Alida, 
sister of Peter Schuyler. At his death, which soon 
occurred, the young widow married Robert Living- 
ston. " Robert Livingston came to this country in 
1674. He was a man to be remembered on his own 
account, independent of birth and connection ; he 



Rev. y 0/171 Livingstone, of Anci-nni. 

was polished in his manners, but careless of giving 
pleasure and indifferent to giving pain ; and withal, 
so icily impertinent at times as never to attain popu- 
larity. He was of infinite benefit to the colony, for 
his energy and activity set in motion many a wheel 
which otherwise would have been long in turning." — 
Airs. Lamb's History of Nezu York. 

" Robert Livingston had three sons, Philip, Robert, 
and Gilbert. Among the grandsons of Philip, were 
Pliilip, one of the illustrious band of patriots who 
signed the ' Declaration of Independence,' and Wil- 
liam, LL.D., for a series of years Governor of New 
Jersey, a man of warm piety, and distinguished for the 
great powers of his mind." Philip Livingston (2d), 
was the grandfather of Stephen Van Rensselaer (the 
Patroon), whose public and patriotic services and 
princely liberality in the promotion of science and re- 
ligion are well known. (I give farther on a memorial 
of him intact, prepared by his intimate friend, Hon. 
D. D. Barnard). 

" In 1774, Philip Livingston was appointed on the 
committee to prepare an address to the people of 
Great Britain. He was chosen a member of the 
first Congress, which met at Philadelphia. Re-elect- 
ed in 1775, with full power to concert with delegates 
of other colonies upon such measures as should be 
judged efTectual. On the 4th of July, 1776, affixed 
his name to the Declaration of .Independence. On 
the 15th of July, 1776, chosen by Congress a 



Aticcstral Sketches. 

member of the Board of Treasury, and in April fol- 
lowing, a member of the Marine Committee. On the 
13th of May, 1777, re-elected to Congress, and as- 
sisted in framing a Constitution for the State of New 
York, and chosen a Senator under it." 

" Hostilities with Great Britain had now com- 
menced in earnest ; and it being supposed that the 
enemy would early seek the occupation of the City 
of New York, which was in a defenceless situation, 
many of the citizens deemed it prudent to remove 
their families, and Mr. Livingston went to Kingston. 
In October, 1777, he was re-elected to Congress, and 
took his seat in May, 1778, and devoted his whole 
faculties to the salvation of his country. A short 
time before his death he sold a portion of his estate 
to sustain the public credit. He expired at York, 
Penn., on the 12th of June, 1778." 

" William Livingston died in 1789. Few of the 
great men of the Revolution were more truly of 
heroic mould, or had exerted a more salutary influ- 
ence over the farming community." 

" yohn Henry Livingston, the grandson of Gil- 
bert, was the celebrated clergyman of the Dutch 
Church, and the descendant of the Rev. Divine of An- 
crum, and upon whom his ancestor's mantle so 
worthily fell. He was a mature and accomplished 
theologian, and was greatly distinguished. Of his 
eminent advantages-for study in foreign universities 

he had richly availed himself. With the Dutch, 

214 



Rev. -John Livingstone, of Ancriim. 

Greek, and Hebrew languages he was thoroughly 
acquainted, and once told a friend that while in Hol- 
land pursuing his studies, he used to dream in Latin." 
His eloquence was miraculous, and his courteous 
manners won all hearts. "While he was in Utrecht on 
one occasion, a number of devout persons had as- 
sembled for the purpose of comparing their views 
and exercises under the power of redeeming grace. 
After the throne of grace had been addressed, and a 
song of Zion sung, a person from Asia gave an ac- 
count of the means of his conversion — then one from 
Africa, whose family was among the most respectable 
at the Cape of Good Hope, told how he was first 
made sensible of his guilt ; and Mr. Livingston, from 
America, followed next, and in a brief, eloquent state- 
ment told what the Lord had done for his soul ; and 
after him the Countess of R , from Europe, de- 
tailed her religious experiences — thus, Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and America were united in mutual senti- 
ments of fervent love and Christian communion. He 
wrote : ' We testified these by singing at the close of 

our conference the seventy - second psalm I 

never experienced so much devotion in singing a 
psalm, nor did I ever obtain such peculiar confirma- 
tion in any other experiences, of the divine teaching 
and sanctifying grace.' 

" Possessing a happy talent at conversation, he em- 
ployed it, as he had opportunity, to magnify and com- 
mend the grace of the Redeemer ; this he could do 

215 



A ncestra I Sketch cs. 

with an ease and dignity and solemnity that were truly 
admirable and peculiar to himself. He returned to 
his native country and was ordained and became a 
collegiate pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church of 
the City of New York in 1770, and attained great 
influence, and by his extreme suavity, more than any 
other man, contributed to the healing of divisions 
and securing peace in the church." "In 1810, here- 
signed his pastoral charge, after having continued to 
faithfully labor in it more than forty years. He died 
in 1825, without the least premonition, or the move- 
ment of a muscle, in the night-watches of 20th 
January, aged seventy-nine years." 



GOVERNOR THOMAS FITCH, 

COLONIAL GOVERNOR 



OF 

CONNECTICUT. 



GOVERNOR THOMAS FITCH. 

COLONIAL GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT. 



" Connecticut, no less than other parts of New 
England, was settled with particular view to religion. 
With respect to their sentiments, and those of their 
followers, these refugees were Puritans. This was a 
name that was first obtained in the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth in 1364. It was given as a name of re- 
proach, to distinguish and stigmatize those who did 
not conform to the liturgy, ceremonies, and discipline 
of the Church of England. Fuller says, ' It was im- 
proved to abuse pious people, who endeavored to 
follow the minister with a pure heart, and labored 
for a life pure and holy.' In the reign of James the 
First, those who were Calvinistic were termed doctri- 
nal Puritans. It was used finally as a stigma for all 
Christians who were strict in morals, Calvinistic in 
sentiment, and unconformed to the liturgy of the 
Established Church. The first ministers in this Col- 
ony were strictly Calvinistic, though agreeing in doc- 
trine with all the Protestant Reformed Churches 

Persecutions had arisen, and they resolved to leave 

219 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

England for a more tolerant country. The earliest 
reached Holland, ' that sanctuary of safety,' and em- 
barked for America as soon as they could perfect 
their arrangements." — Trwnhuirs History of Con- 
nect ii it t. 

" Delfthaven is a suburb of Rotterdam, and in 
sight of that harbor in which the May-Flower out- 
fitted for its great enterprise, and of the old church in 
uiiicli the Puritans worshipped during their sojourn 
in Holland. The old church is said to have been 
(just as we have seen it to-day, 1882,) as it was in the 
Pilgrims' days. The Maas and the sea are in sight, 
into which the Puritans sailed. This is the harbor 
out of which the 'Pilgrim-fathers' departed for 
Amci ica. I tried to picture the scene, and the sym- 
pathizing Dutch burghers of the 1 7th century who 
watched the departure, and the quaint forms and de- 
vout faces of those heroes and heroines — those 
founders of a nation of national character and in- 
stitutions, which have changed the very face of the 
civilized world. I looked seaward until the waters 
were lost in the horizon, and thought of the anxieties 
that must have filled that little company as the house- 
tops of Delfthaven, and the spires of this land of 
their refuge, faded out of sight, and their vessel's 
prow turned toward that unknown Western World." 
—Rev. Dr. H. C. M' Cook. 

" These ' P^athers of Connecticut,' as to politics, 
were Republicans. They rejected with abhorrence 



Governor T/iot/ms Fitch. 

the doctrines of the ' Divine right of Kings,' passive 
obedience, and non-resistance. With Sidney, Hamp- 
den, and other great writers, they beheved that all 
civil power was originally in the people. Upon these 
principles they formed their civil constitutions. Many 
of the clergy who first came into the country had 
good estates, and assisted their poor brethren and 
parishioners in their straits in making new settle- 
ments. The people were then far more dependent 
on their ministers than they have been since. The 
clergy possessed a very great proportion of the litera- 
ture of the Colony. They were the principal instruc- 
tors of the young gentlemen. They had given a strik- 
ing evidence of their self-denial in emigrating into 
this rough and distant country for the sake of relig- 
ion, and were faithful and abundant in their labors. 
They were exiles and fellow-sufferers in a strange 
land. All circumstances combined to give them an 
uncommon influence over all ranks and characters. 
By their examples, counsels, exhortations, and money, 
these noble men made themselves most important and 
needful to all. In no government have the clergy 
had more influence, or been treated with more gener- 
osity and respect by the civil rulers and people in 
general, than in Connecticut." — TrumbulF s History 
of Connecticut. 

THE REGICIDES. 

" Very soon after the ' Restoration ' a large num- 
ber of the Judges of King Charles the First, com- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

monly called ' Regicides,' were apprehended and 
brought to trial in the Old Baily. Thirty-nine were 
condemned, and ten executed as traitors. Colonels 
Whalley and Goffe made their escape to New En- 
gland, and arrived in Boston in 1660. Governor 
Endicot, of Mass., and the gentlemen of character, 
generally treated them with kindness and respect. 
They both were gentlemen of singular abilities, and 
had moved in an exalted sphere. Whalley had been 
a Lieut.-General, and Goffe a Major-General in 
Cromwell's army." " Their manners were elegant, and 
their appearance grave and dignified. They soon 
reached New Haven, and the more the people be- 
came acquainted with them, the more were they 
esteemed there, not only as men of great minds, but 
of unfeigned piety and religion." " It was not long, 
however, before the news of the King's proclamation 
against all Regicides arrived, requiring that wherever 
they should be found tiiey should be immediately ap- 
prehended. They removed to Milford, returning 
often at night privately to New Haven, and were 
generally secreted in Rev. Mr. Davenport's house. 
In the meantime the Governor of Massachusetts 
received a royal mandate to apprehend them. A 
feigned search had already been made in Massachu- 
setts, but in consequence of this new mandate, the 
Governor and magistrates began to view the affair in 
a more serious light, and orders were given to search 
for these unhapjiy men ; and two young Royalists 



Governo7- Thomas Fitch. 

went through the Colonies as far as the Manhadoes 
to find them." "They were very unwelcome messen- 
gers everywhere. All were touched with compassion 
and sympathy, and had real scruples of conscience 
with respect to delivering such men to certain death. 
They viewed them as of the excellent of the earth, 
and devised every excuse for delay and procrastina- 
tion. The ' pursuivants ' went into several houses, 
and into one where they actually were, but they were 
received with such composure and address that they 
left without making any search. It is said that at 
New Haven, when the pursuers passed the ' Neck- 
bridge,' the Judges were concealed under it. The 
Regicides took up their quarters in other places. For 
a short time they lived in the woods, and then in a 
cave which they called ' Providence Hill,' which was 
for some time the place of their residence, and when 
in dread of apprehension they always returned to 
their cave ; but to prevent any trouble to Mr. Daven- 
port or the Colony, they once or more came into the 
town openly, and offered to deliver themselves up 
to save their friends. The magistrates were often 
blamed for not giving them up." — Trumhiiir s His- 
tory of Connecticut. 

" From their various retreats in the woods, the 
Regicides repaired to the house of a Mr. Tompkins 
in Milford. In this house they remained in the most 
perfect concealment for two years. They had a pri- 
vate room devoted to them, and did not so much as 

223 



Ancestral Sketches. 

venture to walk out into the orchard. The Hon. 
Robert Treat, Benjamin Fenn, and the clergyman 
Roger Newton, were in the secret, often visited them, 
and afforded them such consolation and support as 
their forlorn situation demanded. The manly, sym- 
pathetic nature of Robert Treat needed only to know 
that they were friendless and sorrowful. A single 
grasp of his hand, a glance at his speaking counte- 
nance, was enough to assure them that their secrets 
were safely intrusted to his keeping." . . . . " We 
are not to infer from the solitude and the dangers 
that all the time threatened the Regicides, that they 
were the victims of moping melancholy. On the 
other hand, though they behaved with a dignity wor- 
thy of their former position, they beguiled the time 
with pleasant conversation, and often with that cheer- 
fulness that is so often allied so strangely at times to 
misery. During their stay at Milford, there was 
brought over from England a ballad written by some 
hare-brained cavalier rhymer, placing the Regicides in 
such a ludicrous light that a Loyalist might be excused 
for laughing, or a Puritan even for biting his lip at 
the recital of it. This ballad, a girl who was an in- 
mate of Mr. Tompkins' family, or who was in the 
habit of visiting the house, had committed to memory 
and had learned to sing it, which she happened to do 
in the room above that occupied by the Judges. They 
were so amused by the song that they used often 
to beg their host to have it repeated by the young 



Governor Thomas Fifch. 

ladies of the family, who little knew what an inter- 
ested auditory was accidentally provided for them. 
• ... In 1664, when it became known that commis- 
sioners were charged with their arrest, their friends 
were again alarmed for their safety,' and it was thought 
best that they should leave Milford for some other 
place of concealment. They travelled only by night, 
and lay concealed during the day in some shady nook 
in the woods, where the murmuring of the water in- 
vited them to repose. These stopping-places they 
called ' Harbors'— one still retains the name of ' Pil- 
grims' Harbor,' at Meriden. They reached Hadley 
in safety, and were secreted in the house of Rev. John 
Russell, in a secret chamber, probably until they died. 
They kept a diary of 'the most minute events that 
transpired, probably more to amuse themselves than 
for any historical purpose. This journal was in the 
handwriting of Goffe. Indeed, his friend Whalley 
became infirm not long after his removal to Hadley. 
and from what I can glean from the tender expres- 
sions in regard to him that I find in Gofi-e's letters I 
infer that he died in i6;S."-y/,///,/,;.', History of 
Connecticut. 

-Colonel John Dixwell, of the Priory of Falkstone, 
in Kent, was possessed of a manor and several estates 
of value. He was one of the King's Judges also, in 
1649. He was a member of Parliament. At the 
Restoration he left England, but what ministering 
angels took care of him are secrets that have passed 

225 



Ancestral Sketches. 

into oblivion. From Goffe's last journal we learn 
that he visited his brother Regicides at Hadley in 
1665. He died in 1689. I believe that these three 
sleep together, but I leave the antiquarian to settle 
this delicate question. 1 bid the Regicides adieu." — 
Hollistcrs Connecticut. 

In 1646 Rev. James Fitch, a descendant of a 
proud English family, who had perfected his theo- 
logical studies under the direction of the celebrated 
Hooker, was ordained pastor of a church at Say- 
brook, but eventually removed to Norwich, and the 
greater part of his church went with him in 1660, 
when he settled there. " Sir Thomas Fitch, his 
father, of Eltham, in Kent County, England, was 
created a Baronet by Charles I. of England, by 
Patent No. 905. He was a Judge of much dis- 
tinction, and was mentioned as such by Sir William 
Blackstone. 

" William Fitch, a descendant of Baron Fitch, was 
for some years a member of Parliament. 

" Thomas Fitch, lineal descendant of Baron Fitch, 
died in Braintree, Essex County, England, leaving a 
widow and several sons, who came to this country 
between the years 1634 and 1638, having sold the 
family estate, which was situated at Birch, Essex 
County. 

" Thomas Fitch arrived in 1639, and, with his 
brother Joseph, settled in Norwalk, Conn., were 



Governor Thomas Fitch. 

planters, and purchased a tract of land from the In- 
dians by deed dated Feb. 15, 1651." " From Tho7}ias 
Fitch, in a line of three generations, each bearing the 
same name, descended Thomas Fitch, for twelve years 
Colonial Governor of Connecticut." 

" He held many positions of trust, and was Judge, 
Chief-Justice, Lieutenant-Governor, and Governor of 
the Colony, occupying a space of 46 years. He grad- 
uated at Yale College in 1721. Was an eloquent 
speaker, an accomplished scholar, able jurist, an ele- 
gant, accomplished, as well as a Christian gentleman. 
He was appointed by the General Assembly to revise 
and remodel the laws of Connecticut, which were con- 
sidered by English jurists as the best code of Colonial 
laws that had ever been published. He held the pen 
of a ready writer, and his proclamations are consid- 
ered fine specimens of State papers, the purity of 
language of which, our modern Governors would 
do well to imitate. This correspondence with the 
Governors of the State of New York, as will be 
seen by reference to the documentary and colonial 
history of the times in which he lived, was most 
ably conducted ; and affixed, as a seal to most of his 
correspondence and State papers, is the coat of arms 
of his family." 

Governor Fitch united the statesman with the man 
of thought. He was deeply interested in religious 
movements, but he tried to break down the ecclesias- 
tical exclusiveness of the sects, which then predom- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

inated in his native State. This was the prominent 
feature of his later years, and he was honored and be- 
loved for the courage and honesty with which he 
stood by his convictions. No thraldom equalled the 
power of those old Puritanic ideas, and the time had 
not come when one could set at nought such wide- 
spread influences. Governor Fitch was a txwe patriot, 
although holding office " under the Crown." When 
the Stamp Act was passed, the stamps were sent to 
Connecticut before New York, with strict orders to 
the Governor for their immediate distribution. The 
news spread like wildfire. General Putnam, at the 
head of an immense concourse, went to demand them, 
threatening, if they were not immediately delivered, 
that his house should be burned on the spot. The 
Governor, who was of majestic height and appear- 
ance, stepped bareheaded upon his balcony, and lock- 
ing the door of his house, said, "Gentlemen, here is 
the key of my house, and the stamps are within it. I 
will not deliver one." After a parley with the crowd. 
General Putnam withdrew. Governor Fitch, without 
a word of concession, sent back to Fngland every 
single stamp that had been sent to him. In the au- 
tumn of that year the Stamp Act was revoked. 
'^Samuel Rogers was the Private Secretary of Gov- 
ernor Fitch. He was from Nova Scotia, the son of 
an Episcopal clergyman, and his family well thought 
of in Canada. As a natural sequence he fell in love 
with the Governor's daughter. " Queen Elizabeth," 

228 



Governor Thomas Fitch. 

as she was called, was very proud and imperious. I 
have heard her called handsome ; if such was the case, 
her portrait, which I had for many years, did her in- 
justicej She wearied, perhaps, of the long sermons — 
the " Seventeenthly," " Lastly," " Finally," and " In 
conclusion " — or, perhaps, she had heard of the trial of 
Judith ^"erlet, " Our Witch," a hundred years before 
at Hartford, for "Witchery" — or perhaps she pre- 
ferred the Episcopal service — or, perhaps, she pre- 
ferred her English lover ; i at any rate, she married 
Samuel Rogers, and eventually went with him to St. 
John, New Brunswick, where she lived many years, 
all their property having been confiscated in the 
States, their hereditary home in Norwalk destroyed, 
and where Samuel Rogers, some years after, was, by 
a sad accident, drowned. She returned with her 
family, after peace was proclaimed between England 
and the United States. J 

Governor Fitch died in 1774. " He filled the prin- 
cipal posts of Government in this colony by the free 
election of the people, in all of which he served his 

generation with wisdom and fidelity Soon after 

he was called to the principal seat of Government, it 
was a time of great distress. A cruel and sanguine 
war broke out with one of the most powerful nations 
of Europe, and with the heathen sav^ages of the land, 

and this country became a principal seat of war 

We had wars and rumors of wars — and this colony in 

particular exerted itself to the utmost of its power 

229 



Ancestral Skctclics. 

year after year. But yet the Governor managed with 
so much prudence that the people persevered, until 
the God of armies was pleased to prosper the British 
arms and bring the war to a happy conclusion." — 
Sermon by Air. Dickinson. 

" After his 'dismission ' as Governor of the Colony, 
after the Stamp Act had put the whole country into 
confusion, he bore this event, which occasioned the 
greatest grief to a part of the colony, with calmness, 
and devoted himself to study and repose." In the 
funeral oration above quoted from, which I have, it is 
adduced against him that he had somewhat of a fond- 
ness for " Episcopacy." " For while he was con- 
nected with Yale College, that great revolution hap- 
pened, when the rector, and one of the tutors, and 
two of the neighboring ministers, embraced the Epis- 
copal persuasion, and went home to England for 
orders. It is not so much to be wondered at, there- 
fore, if he had a favorable opinion of some of the 
doctrines that are propagated by some of the divines 
of that persuasion." 

The intolerance of that age was extreme. After 
the " Forefathers' " times a new generation arose who 
had not imbibed the true spirit of their fathers, and 
contentions, disputes of all kind, and consequent di- 
visions and " platforms," and " corruptions in doc- 
trine," had taken the place of the once established 
belief. Arminianism, " Separates," Baptists, Congre- 
gationalism, I''.piscopac\', had all come up. Nothing 



Governor Thomas Fiich. 

could quite satisfy these "searchers after the truth." 
The great intellects of the age seemed unable to quiet 
the disturbances. Whitfield, Tennant, Dr. Bellamy, 
Jonathan Edwards, Davenport, etc., could not quell 
the storm. The Great Revival ensued, but all fol- 
lowed their own devices. 

" In the year 1739 Rev. George Whitfield, a pious 
young clergyman of the Church of England, came 
over to America. He preached in all the churches, 
and people of all denominations flocked in crowds to 
hear him. He was invited to New York, and 
preached eight times in that place with great applause 
and effect. He preached at many places on his 
way to Philadelphia, and to Georgia, people fol- 
lowing him by land, sometimes sixty miles, to hear 
him. At one place it was computed that his congre- 
gation consisted of not less than ten thousand hear- 
ers These reports reaching New England, 

there was a great desire to see and hear him." The 
following account of his character and preaching was 
given by a gentleman of eminence, and published at 
the time : " He is of a sprightly, cheerful temper ; 
acts and moves with great agility and life. The en- 
dowments of his mind are very uncommon ; his wit 
is quick and piercing, his imagination lively and florid. 
. . . . He has a most ready memory, and I think 
speaks entirely without notes. He has a clear and 
musical voice, ^nd a wonderful command of it ; uses 
much gesture, but with great propriet\'. Ever)- ac- 



Ancestral Sketches. 

cent of his voice, every motion of his body, speaks, 
and both are natural and unaffected. If his delivery 
is the product of art, it is certainly the perfection of 
it, for it is entirely concealed. He has a great mas- 
tery of words, but studies great plainness of speech. 
. . . . His doctrine is right sterling; I mean per- 
fectly agreeable to the Articles of the Church of 
England, to which he often appeals for the truth of 
it. He loudly proclaims all men by nature to be 
under sin, and obno.xious to the wrath of God. He 
asserts the 'Righteousness of Christ' to be the only 
justification of the sinner, and that faith in this belief 
is the gift of God." A gentleman who, at first, had 
many scruples on his mind relative to him gives this 
account of his preaching and the effects of it : " Un- 
der this frame of mind I went to hear him in the 
evening at the Presbyterian church, where he ex- 
pounded to above two thousand people within doors 
and without. I never in my life saw so attentive an 
audience. Mr. Whitfield spoke as one having au- 
thority. All he said was demonstration, life, and 
power. The people's eyes and ears hung on his lips. 
They greedily devoured every word. I came home 
astonished. I never heard or saw the like. Every 
scruple vanished, and T said within myself, surely 
God is with this man." " The ev^ening upon which 
he preached his last lecture in New York thousands 
came together to hear him, but as the place was too 
strait for them, many were obliged to go away, and 



Governor Thomas FitcJi. 

it was said with tears in their eyes, lamenting their 
disappointment." "He embarked at Charleston for 
New England, touched with a curiosity to see the 
descendants of the good old Puritans and their seats 
of learning, and arrived at Rhode Island September 
14, 1740, preaching at all the towns on his way to 
Boston. It was supposed that his hearers at his last 
sermon, when he took leave of that town, were not 
less than twenty thousand." Wherever he went, pul- 
pits and houses were opened to him, and the same in- 
fluence and effects attended his preaching. When he 
arrived at Northampton he was joyfully received by 
Jonathan Edwards and his people. When he came 
to remind them of the great things God had done for 
them, " it was like putting fire to tinder ; both min- 
ister and people were much moved ; almost the whole 
assembly were in tears during a great part of his ser- 
mon," says the writer of Mr. Edwards' life. In De- 
cember he arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, 
where he made the following remarks : " I have been 
enabled to preach one hundred and seventy-five times 
in public, besides exhorting frequently in private. I 
have travelled upward of eight hundred miles, and 
have gotten seven hundred pounds sterling for the 
Georgia orphans." — Truvibiiir s Hist, of Connectictit. 
Soon errors and enthusiasm crept into the churches, 
and divisions followed in later years. In their re- 
ligious conduct they were influenced rather by inward 
impressions than by the intimations of Providence. 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

They paid a great regard to visions and trances. In 
these some would lie for hours, and on their coming 
to themselves, would tell of wonderful things they 
had seen in heaven and hell, and of such and such 
persons, if dead, who were in each place. Supersti- 
tion was rampant. Everything impressed itself upon 
the imagination. ..." Accounts of the uncommon 
noises in East Haddam " set the people almost wild. 
Rev. Mr. Hosmer gives an account of them : " As 
to the earthquakes, I have something considerable 
and awful to tell you. (They seem to have their 
origin among us.) I have been informed that before 
the English settlements there were great numbers of 
Indian inhabitants, and that it was a place where they 
worshipped the Devil. Also I was informed that 
many years past an old Indian was asked. What was 
the reason of the noises in this place ? To which he 
replied that 'the Indian's God was very angry that 
the Englishman's God was come there.' Now, 
whether there be anything diabolical in these things I 

know not Whether it be fire or air distressed 

in the subterraneous caverns of the earth can not be 
known, for there is no eruption, no explosion per- 
ceptible but by sounds and tremors, which sometimes 
are very fearful and dreadful. I have myself heard 
eight or ten sounds successively, and imitating small 

arms, in the space of five minutes Sometimes 

we have heard them almost every day, and great 
numbers of them in the space of a year They 



Governor Tlionias Fitch. 

have in a manner ceased since the great earthquake." 
A worthy gentleman gave the following account of 
them : " The awful noises of which Rev. Mr. Hos- 
mer gave an 'account, continue to the present time. 
The effects they produce are various, as the inter- 
mediate degrees between the roar of a cannon and 
the noise of a pistol. The shock they give to a 
dwelling is the same as the falling of logs upon the 

floor By recurring to the newspapers you will 

find that an earthquake was noticed in May, 1791. 
It was perceived as far distant as New York and 
Boston. A few minutes after there was another 
shock, which was perceptible at the distance of seven- 
ty miles. Consternation and dread filled every house. 
It was a night much to be remembered. There were 
during the night shocks to the number of twenty, 
perhaps thirty. The next day stones of several tons' 
weight were found removed from their places, and 
apertures in the earth, and fissures in immovable 
rocks. .... Since that time the noises and shocks 
have been less frequent than before, though not a 
year passes over us but some of them are percepti- 
ble." — Trumbu/i's History of Connecticut. 

" The bigotry of Puritanism in vogue in Connecti- 
cut in early times, differed from the established bigot- 
ries of England, not so much in degree as in kind. 
Both the great parties that divided that country were, 
so far as I can discover, equally intolerant, but their 

intolerance aimed at different things. The adherents 

235 



Ancestral Sketches. 

of one abhorred a conventicle as if it had been a 
pestilence ; those of the other fled from the sight of 
the surplice as if it had been a mask of leprosy. One 
party, in seeking to discard the forms that it regarded 
as the relics of idolatry, came at last to shudder at 
the sight of the Cross, and in mockery quartered 
troops of soldiers in sacred chapels, and fed the 
horses of the dragoons from the altars of venerable 
churches; the other, with a holy horror, sacriliced hu- 
man victims to appease God's wrath. The narrow- 
mindedness of the one party drove it to spurn the 
elegancies of classical learning, and to turn away 
from Shakespeare with loathing ; while that of the 
other looked askance at the greatest epic in the whole 
treasury of letters, because it had been bequeathed to 
the world by a Puritan." — Hollistcr s History of Con- 
necticut. 

" The Puritans had left England with a main de- 
sign to enjoy their own religious tenets. With this 
view, they had bought their wild lands ; with this 
view, they established a peculiar form of government. 
They looked with extreme jealousy iqion the en- 
croaching power of popery, and many of them re- 
garded Episcopacy as only a modified form of Ca- 
tholicism. They determined, too, that if it were 
possible, the very festivals as well as the modes of 
worshi]) that were associated in their minds with op- 
pression antl arbitrary power should be suppressed, 
and that other public days should be substituted. 



Governor 1 honias Fitch. 

Their public days were two — viz., Fast and Thanks- 
giving Days. Care was always taken not to have the 
former on Good Friday. On Fast Day no food was 
cooked in their houses, nor did the more exemplary 
members eat any regular meal until the sun went 
down. It was ordered in 1644 that there should be a 
day of fasting and humiliation observed throughout 
the plantations every month. The regular annual 
fast was not apj)ointed until after the Revolution. 
But the grand festival of the people, and the one in 
which all took the liveliest interest, was Thanksgiv- 
ing. The early part of the day was spent in attend- 
ance upon public worship, where the old members sat 
more erect than they were wont, and could not with 
all their humility refrain from dividing their attention 
between the discourse and the long rows of boys 
who, in spite of the strictness of Puritan discipline, 
waited impatiently for the ' Amen ' that was to set 
them free. On their return from the meeting-house, 
dinner awaited them. It maybe presumed that there 
was not a single dyspeptic in the whole group, and 
that they did justice to the viands. In the evening 
the family gathered around the blazing hickory fire, 
and each recounted in turn the incidents that had 
given variety to the year. Indian wars ; the depreda- 
tions of the Dutch ; the plot of that wretch, Peter 
Stuyvesant, to exterminate the whole English popu- 
lation (perhaps the Regicides) ; the wolf and bear 
hunts; and, I must admit, sometimes still more mar- 

237 



Ancestral Sketches. 

velous manifestations from the spiritual world — ap- 
paritions, ghosts, visitations from the Devil, etc. ; the 
execution of Goodwife Knapp, and the dreadful 
scorn with which she looked upon her accusers. Such 
interesting themes served to while away the time. 

"As the evening deepened, and the little flock of 
accumulated children began to nod on their benches 
in the chimney-corner, the old family Bible was 
brought out, and, after a portion of it had been read, 
the voice of the grandsire, tremulous with emotion 
rather than age, was heard returning thanks for many 
mercies, and supplications for the continuance of the 
blessings that liad l)een accorded them, and wound up 
the evening. Such was old T/iaiiksgivvig, a time- 
honored, venerable custom that has gradually extend- 
ed itself into the most distant part of our great Re- 
public." — Hollisters History of Cojinecticut. 

" I have intimated that balls were among the 
amusements of the past in this colony. Tiiis, it is 
presumed, was ordinarily confined to the young peo- 
ple, and did not meet always with the concurrence of 
the more sedate part of the community. It was long 
the custom for the young men and women of a parish 
to celebrate the occasion of the settlement of a new 
minister by a ball. Tiiis was called the ' Ordination 
Ball' and was conducted with such propriety and 
decorum that church-members, and even the new ]ias- 
tor, would sometimes honor the ball with llieir ]ires- 

ence. Tiiey ultiinatelv came to be regarded as a 

23S 



Govo'Hor Tluwias Fitcli. 

scandal, and were suppressed." Morris, in his " His- 
tory of Litchfield," speaks of a dance in that town in 
1748 where a violin was used for the first time in the 
place, and adds : " The whole expense of the amuse- 
ment, although the young people generally attended, 
did not exceed one dollar, out of which the fiddler 
was paid. Yet the parents and old people declared 
they ' should be ruined by the extravagances of the 
youth.' " Verily " old things are passed away." 

I will copy the inscription from the tombstone of 
Governor Fitch, which stands in as good order as it 
was placed, in 1774, and has latterly been inclosed by 
a handsome iron railing, placed there by John Fitch, 
a descendant : 

" The Honorable Thomas Fitch. Eminent and 
distinguished among mortals for great abilities, large 
acquirements, and a virtuous character ; a clear, strong, 
sedate mind, and an accurate, extensive acquaintance 
with law and civil government ; a happy talent of 
presiding, close application, and strict fidelity in the 
discharge of important trusts, no less than for his 
employments by the voice of the people in the chief 
offices of State and at the head of the Colony. Hav- 
ing served his generation by the will of God, fell 
asleep July i8th, Anno Domini 1774, in the 78th 
year of his age." 

Among the Fitch descendants was John Fitch, of 
Norwalk, the inventor of the steamboat. Others 
have claimed his invention — it is so easy to build 



Ajiccstral Sketches. 

upon the foundation of another in this age — but to 
yohn Fitch belongs this great invention. " Fitch be- 
longed to the prominent Connecticut family of that 
name. He had been inventing and experimenting 
for a dozen or more years, hoping to succeed in the 
application of steam-power to navigation. His gen- 
ius, idiosyncrasies, and ' ivipccuniosity ' were in per- 
petual conflict ; otherwise he might have achieved 
the triumph to which he aspired. He was a man of 
striking figure, six feet two inches in height, erect 
and full, his head slightly bald, but not gray, although 
fifty-three years of age, and dignified and distant in 
his general behavior. The ' Collect ' (Klock), in 
New York vicinity, was the scene, in the summer of 
I 796, of the first trial of a steamboat with a screw pro- 
peller. It was the invention of John Fitch. The boat 
was eighteen feet in length and six feet beam, with 
square stern, round bows, and seats. The boiler was 
a ten or twelve gallon iron pot. The little craft 
passed round the pond several times, and was believed 
capable of making six miles an hour. The spectacle 
was watched with critical interest by Chancellor Liv- 
ingston, Nicholas Roosevelt, John Stevens, and oth- 
ers, who had, in common with philosophers and in- 
ventors in England and Europe, been for some time 
engaged in the speculative study of the steam-engine 
and its prospective uses. The first steamboat on tiic 
Hudson was called the ' jfohn Fitch.' The belief that 

steam was destined to submit to the control of the 
240 



Governor TJiomas Fiich. 

human intellect for practical purposes was rapidly 
gaining strength, although the facile adaptations of 
its power were yet but visionary possibilities to the 
intelligence and observation of mankind, and it was 
by no means confined to any one nation. The in- 
genuity of almost every civilized country was in exer- 
cise over contrivances for the propulsion of boats by 
steam. John Fitch is thought to have invented the 
first double-acting condensing engine, transmitting 
power by means of cranks, ever produced in any 
country. To experiment for two years, he ran a 

steamboat on the Delaware He went to 

France, hoping to obtain the privilege of building 
steamboats there, but was disappointed in all his ef- 
forts. ' The time will come,' said a colleague, ' when 
people will travel in stages moved by steam-engines 
from one city to another, almost as fast as birds can 
fly — fifteen or twenty miles an hour,' and his asso- 
ciates smiled incredulously. Fitch had made his last 
effort in steam navigation, and the same autumn he 
removed to Kentucky, where he died (probably of 
chagrin and disappointment) in 1798." — LamUs His- 
tory of Nctu York. 

"Governor Thomas Fitch was the father of Gen- 
eral Thomas I'itch, who commanded the four New 
England regiments in the French and Indian War ; 
and in derision of these four regiments, that ridiculous 
' Yankee Doodle ' was composed and sung at the 

time they were in camp on the banks of the Hudson 

241 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

River at Greenbush, opposite Albany, probably to 
relieve the tedium of the night-watches. These regi- 
mcnts performed their full share in the attack on Fort 
Ticonderoga, and suffered a greater loss in proportion 
to their numbers than the whole British Army." 

"Mrs. Rogers, the 'Queen Elizabeth,' daughter of 
Governor Fitch, returned with her family to the 
United States, after the Peace. One or two of 
her sons had been in the Provincial army, at the 
instance, probably, of their father. The Puritan 
wife had carried her early tastes into the country 
of her adoption, and had introduced the biblical 
names, which had pleased her childhood, into her 
own family — Moses, Nehemiah, Esther, etc. She 
made her home with her daughter Esther, who soon 
married a young Scotch merchant, Archibald Gracie. 
Oliver Wolcott, who knew him intimately, said of 
him : ' He was one of the excellent of the earth — 
actively liberal, intelligent, seeking and rejoicing in 
occasions to do good.' His wealth at one time was 
enormous, even after he lost over a million dollars 
through the Berlin and Milan decrees. Of Archibald 
Gracie, whose beautiful ships and well-known red and 
white private signal were familiar in every sea, no 
more endearing memory exists than that of his intel- 
ligent and far-reaching sympathy in the free-school 
enterprise. His manliness and liberality are recorded 

in imperishable colors. He left three sons 

Mrs. Gracie was a lady of rare excellence, and their 



Governor Thomas Fitch. ' 

domestic life was of the purest, sweetest, and most 
charming character. She was Esther Rogers, sister 
of the distinguished merchant-brothers, Fitch, Henry, 
Moses, and Nehemiah Rogers, three of whom founded 
three great mercantile houses in this city. Two of 
Mrs. Grade's daughters married Charles and James 
G. King, sons of Hon. Rufus King, and a third, Hon. 
William Beach Lawrence." — Mrs. Lamb's History of 
Neiv York. ' 

"Moses Rogers was a proud old merchant. He 
was well known in New York in i 7S5 as a patron of 
all that was charitable. His business office was in 
Queen Street, afterward changed in name to Pearl 
Street. He married, in i ■]-]2, Sarah, daughter of Ben- 
jamin Woolsey ; her sister having married Rev. Tim- 
othy Dwight, the celebrated theologian, and President 
of -Yale College ; and her brother, William Walton 
Woolsey, was a famed New York merchant and phi- 
lanthropist In 1770 Moses Rogers became an 

active member of the ' Marine Society,' and one of the 
earliest Governors of the New York Hospital, which 
had been rebuilt, after its destruction by fire before 
the Revolution. In 1793 he was a member of the 
' Society to Relieve Distressed Prisoners.' It is diffi- 
cult to understand at this time how there should have 
been a regular society to relieve prisoners in old New 
York. Yet so there was, and it was a most humane 
society, that numbered the first merchants of the city 
among its members. It lasted many years, and the 



Ancestral Sketches. 

venerable and reverend Dr. John Rogers was Presi- 
dent of it. This Society mitigated the hardships of 
the prisoners, by providing them with food and fuel, 
etc., etc., the jail allowing them only bread and water, 
and no fuel. About 150 prisoners were constantly 
locked up. Two years later, Moses Rogers was one 
of the jury on the trial of John Young, an actor, who 
had killed the sheriff's officer in the Park. The latter 
was going to arrest Mr. Young and take him to the 
old jail. Young shot at and killed him. He was 
then arrested in good earnest, tried, and the jury 
found him guilty. He was hung on the high hill 
east of where the ' Tombs ' now is, the military and 
citizens turning out to see the sad spectacle. Two 
years later, Mr. Rogers was one of the most active 
members of the Society for the ' Manumission of 
Slaves,' as were his brother-in-law, William Dunlap, 
the celebrated historian ; and his wife's brother, Wm. 
W. Woolsey, who was the Secretary of this Society. 
He was a Director of the U. S. Bank and of the Mutual 
Insurance Co.; Treasurer of the City Dispensary; 
for twenty-five years a Vestryman of Trinity, and sub- 
sequently one of the founders of Grace Church, etc., 
all of which duties Moses Rogers discharged with the 
greatest fidelity. At that time he lived at 272 Pearl 
Street ; it was near Beekman Street, a large house, 
with a hanging garden extending over the yard and 
stable. Afterward, he removctl to 7 State Street, a 

Wnc large hcnise he had buill, overlooking the Battery. 

244 



Governor TJionios Fitch. 

It stands to the present day an imposing edifice, with 
its large garden, etc., extending through to Pearl 
Street. He died there in 1S26." — Barrett's Old Mer- 
chants. 

The children of Moses and Sarah Woolsey Rogers 
were : Benjamin Woolsey m. Susan, daughter of Wil- 
liam Ba}ard ; Archibald m. Anna, daughter of Judge 
Pendleton ; Sarah Elizabeth ;;/. Hon. Samuel M. 
Hopkins; Julia Anna ni. Francis B. Winthrop ; 
Hester died young. 

Benjamin Woolsey Rogers, my father, was educated 
entirely in England, having been sent there when only 
nine years old. He went to a school on Clapham Com- 
mon, near London, returning definitely, when nineteen 
or twenty years of age, when he was sent to his uncle, 
President Dwight, of Yale College, for a thorough 
examination in his studies. The requirements there 
at that period may not have been as great as at the 
present time ; but after his recitations, and six weeks' 
stay there, he received his degree, and returned home. 
From his many journals (of great interest to myself) 
I learn his early character and tastes. He travelled 
largely and was a keen observer, and for some years 
seems to have enjoyed himself immensely ; his friends 
were congenial and himself appreciative. In due time 
he entered his father's mercantile house and took up 
his duties. After his marriage he lived at No. 5 State 
Street, and after his father died he moved to No. 7, 
and lived there many years. {That lovely home /) 



A^iccstral Sketches. 

His was a useful and happy life. He was thirty- 
eight years a Governor of the New York Hospital, 
often risking his life there in seasons of malignant 
and contagious diseases. Until his death, in 1859, he 
never intermitted his labors, or gave up his interest in 
his work there, and in his other charities. Such men 
serve God in their lives and generations as truly as 
do the self-denying clergymen, missionaries, etc. It 
was before the introduction of chloroform, and often 
have I seen my father come home pale and ill, in a 
way that puzzled me greatly as a child. " My dear, 
it is my djity : 1 ])romised to be with so and so during 
terrible operations ; I must accustom myself to this ; 
if I had a similar case in my own family, or if a friend 
wanted me, I should have to witness it." I remem- 
ber his words so well ! " Do we recognize as we 
should the gift of ana-sthesia to this age ? The infidel 
may sneer, the worldly-wise laugh, but we can not but 
own in this wonderful discov'cry the gift of Christ, the 
Great Physician, to the world." My father was one of 
the founders of the "Insane Asylum" at Blooming- 
dale, the "Society Library," and the "Academy of 
Fine Arts," now changed in name, and several other, 
now forgotten, objects of interest. He had married 
in 1820 the daughter of Thomas Elwyn, of an old, 
wealthy English family, and the granddaughter of 
Governor John Langdon, of New Hampshire. For 
manv happy years my grandfather Bayard lived at 

No. 6 State Street, the ne.xt house to my father's. 

246 



Governor Tlionias Fitch. 

No opposite neighbors, only the shady old trees of the 
Battery, which we used almost as if the lovely walks 
there had been private grounds, and the sparkling 
waters of the beautiful bay by day, and the sweet 
music from Castle Garden (then a spot choice and 
refined), which we enjoyed from our upper balcony 
by night, made this an ideal home — " Tout passe F' 
Yes, "old things are passed away." "Do not be 
tragic, madam," sometimes, but not often, sounds in 
my ears ; so now I give my thoughts to the Woolseys» 
and give a short but thoroughly-examined genealog- 
ical list of that Anglo-American family. I wish I 
could give a fuller sketch. 



WOOLSEY GENEALOGY. 

Thomas Woolsey. — Born in Enoland, 1520. 

Benjamin Woolsey. — Born in England, 1565. 

George Woolsey. — Came to America from Holland. 
Born at Yarmouth, 16 10. With his father, 
arrived in New York, 1623, when a mere boy. 
His name is mentioned in New York Colonial 
History. 

George (2d) Woolsey. — Born October, 1640. Was 
one of the original settlers, and purchased a 
plantation at Flushing. Died at Jamaica, 
L. I., 1698. 

George (3d) Woolsey. — Born October 10, 1682. 

Rev. Benjamin Woolsey. — Born at Jamaica, L. I. 
Died 1757. Entered Yale College, 1709. He 
married Mary, daughter of John Taylor, and, 
with unusual sentiment in that prosaic age, 
gave the name of " Dosoris " (meaning a wife's 
portion) to that beautiful spot, in acknowledg- 
ment of her father's liberality. " He was a 
good and learned Presbyterian clergyman." 

Benjamin Woolsey (his son). — Graduated at \'ale 

College, 1744. His daughter Mary married 
248 



IVoo/sey Genealogy. 

George Muirson ; and Esther, Capt. Palmer, 
British Army. 
Benjamin Muirson Woolsey. — Was an officer of cav- 
alry in the Queen's " Orange Rangers," after- 
ward a major, and settled in New Brunswick, 
Canada, until the peace. 
Benjamin Woolsey, Jr. — Married Esther De Ralph 

Isaacs. 
Their children, George Muirson W^oolsey, William 
Walton Woolsey ; Mary, who married Rev. 
Timothy Dwight, the celebrated theologian 
and President of Vale College ; Sarah, who 
married Moses Rogers ; and Elizabeth, who 
married William Dunlap, the historian and 
painter. 
In our immediate branch there have been many 
distinguished D.D.'s and learned Professors, culminat- 
ing in the late President of Yale College, Theodore 
D. Woolsey, and the present Dean of the Law School 
in New York, Dr. Theodore W. Dwight ; and the 
patriot, scholar, author, Maj. Theodore VVinthrop, 
7th N. Y. Regt., who in his youth and promise was 
killed in the war with the South. 

"How Theddure W^inthrop Fell. — Our attention 
has been called to an event that occurred very early 
in the history of the great civil war. The first blood 
shed in that long and sanguinary struggle (if we ex- 
cept the affair at Fairfax Court-house) flowed on the 
plains of Bethel, in this State, a few miles above 



Ancestral SkctcJics. 

Hampton. Those who remember the circumstances 
of that fight between Southern troops commanded by 
D. H. Hill, and the Federal forces commanded, but 
not led, by Ben. Butler, will call to mind the brave 
conduct and sad fate of a young Federal officer, who, 
it was said, when his troops faltered and fell back, 
mounted a fence, gallantly waved his sword, and urged 
them to the combat. The account given at the time 
was, that he wore a red sash, which proved to be a 
conspicuous target for our sharpshooters, and was 
soon bathed with the blood of the brave young hero, 
who fought his first and last battle on that fateful 
day." — Lynchburg Virginian, ynnc 3, 1882. 

Volumes of all the great and good families of past 
generations abound so much at present, that it is im- 
possible to keep pace with them, even with those in 
whom we feel the greatest interest. Some few years 
hence they will be invaluable, but home details are 
too recent and sacred to be brought forward yet. I 
love the past and all that is connected with my fam- 
ily ; and the careers of those, whom I have studied 
well, have interested me intensely, and it is with a 
feeling almost of sadness that I close my records. 
Adieu, ye noble ancestors — Huguenots, Covenanters, 
Puritans, "Tories." Again I repeat what I wrote at 
the commencement of these sketches — there is not 
07ie who while he lived did not receive honor and rev- 
erence, and who did not die lamented. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



LE CHATEAU DE BAYARD. 

" Le chateau de Bavard se trouve au fond de la 
valine de Gresivaudan, a six lieues de Grenoble, et 
environ 1500 metres de la station de Pontcharra. En 
1855, cette demeure historique ^tait bien tomb^e, 
com me le montre cet extrait d'un journal de Greno- 
ble de 1855, reproduit par M. de Terrebasse : ' Veut- 
on savoir ce qu'est devenue le manoir du Chevalier 
sans peur et sans reproche ? Un placard appose a la 
porte du tribunal civil de Grenoble nous I'apprend en 
ces termes : 

" ' Bdtiiiioit situc^ au lieu dit Chateau-Bayart, com- 
mune de Pontcharra, ayant servi d'habitation et actu- 

ellement d'entrepot compost d'une cave, d'un 

rez-de-chauss^e, et d'un premier etage dont on distin- 
gue difficilement le nombre de pieces . . . . ; il figure 
sur Ic plan cadastral au No. 172. 

" ' Masiire situ(5e au meme lieu, ... . ou il reste 
encore quelques murs du chateau du Chevalier Bay- 
art. 

" ' Datx totirs rondes situ^es au meme lieu, relides 
par la couverture en pierre en pierre du portail qui 
formait rentr(5e du chateau ; on y entre par un portail 
delabrc, entre deux especes de pavilions : I'un, qui fut 
une chapclle, est au jour d'hui uneetable, I'autre sert de 

253 



Appendix. 

demeure au metayer de la propriety. Le corps de 
logis principal avait trais (Stages ; il n'en reste plus 
que le premier. On y montre encore le cabinet de 
Bayart, et la chambre on il naquit ; les ecuries, la 
cave, et la cuisine seules, ont ct^ conserv(^es.' Peu avant 
sa mort, le due de Berry avait, dit-on, forme le projet 
de racheter ce chateau, et d'en faire une demeure 
princiere ; mais en i86o- le conseil genc^ral ^mit le 
voeu que 'en face des pretentions exorbitantes du 
proprietaire, un ol)elisque commemoratif fut eleve sur 
un emplacement quelcanque dans le territoire de la 
commune de Pontcliarra.' Le voeu est reste, comme 
bien d'autres, a I'etat de lettre morte. 

" ' Le chateau demeura, du vivant de Bayart, I'habi- 
tation de san frere Georges, qui epousa Claudine 
d'Arvillars. Celle-ci, devenue veuve de Georges, 
preta hommage, I'an 1541, pour la Signcurie de Ba- 
yart, ses appartenances et dependances.' 

■' Bien que notre heros signe Bavar/ dans les rares 
autographes connus, nous ecrirons Bayar*^/ avec un d 
final, pour quatres raisons : 1° Si le Loyal Serviteur 
6crit le nom Bayar/, Champicr I'ecrit Bayarrt'. ( )r, 
Champier connut le bon Chevalier ; il ^crivit son his- 
toire aussitot apres sa mort ; il etait lettr^ : 2° Or, 
Ba\'ard lui-meme, s'appele en realite dii Tcrrail. Le 
nom de Bayard n'etait que le nom de la terrc patri- 
moniale. 3° Bayard est un nom ([u'on trouvc ainsi 
ecritdans trois departements. 4° Le d final convient 
a la forme latine du mot, qui est toujours a considc- 
rer enpareil cas. Notre heros, outre ses trois fr^res, 
cut quatre soeurs : deux entrerent au convent, la 
cadette c'pousa Antoine de Theys ; et la troisiemc, 
Marie, fut mere du ea])itaine Pierre du Pont, dit 
^54 



Appendix. 

Pierrepont, dont Bayard fit son Lieutenant, ct qui 
justifia toujours sa confiance, comme le prouve cette 
histoire, ou il est souvcnt nomme." — Histoirc dn 
gentil Scigiiair dc Bayard coiuposcc par Ic Loyal 
Scrvitejir. 

[extracts from the " LOYAL SERVITEUR."] 

" Pierre du Terrail, Seigneur de Bayard, was born 
in 1476, at the chateau de Bayard, in the valley of 
Graisiverden, near Chambery, a few leagues from 
Grenoble, the principal city of Dauphine. For more 
than thirty years he served in the armies of France. 
For valor and skill as a leader he was unsurpassed in 
an age when chivalry was still honored. At that 
time none but the princes of the blood or court 
minions and favorites were permitted to command 
the armies of France, but Bayard often directed the 
movements of her armies, and dictated the order of 
battle, when others were in command who had the 
chief credit of success. He was brave, prudent, and 
sagacious as a soldier ; a Christian of unaffected piety, 
an extremely courteous and generous gentleman, 
whose honor and virtue were proverbial in a wicked 
age. No vice, no act of cruelty or meanness ever 
sullied his fame. He was honored by his friends and 
foes alike, and loved as much as respected by all. 
.... When in Piedmont, in the last charge upon 
the Swiss, a strange adventure happened to Bayard, 
in which he marvelously escaped losing his life. He 
was mounted on a spirited horse (' Le Carineau '), 
who, feeling himself wounded with many pikes, 
slipped his bridle, and, not feeling the bit, took his 

255 



Appendix. 

course through the Swiss ranks, and would have car- 
ried his rider into another troop, which would have 
given him no quarter. By good fortune the horse 
became entangled in some vine-stocks hanging from 
one tree to another, according to the Italian custom, 
and then he was obliged to stop. If Bayard was 
ever in fear of his life it was then ; however, he per- 
severed, and retained his customary presence of mind. 
He managed to slide from his horse to the ground, 
left all his armor behind liim, and, creeping on his 
hands and feet so as to escape observation, turned to 
the direction whence he heard cries of ' France / ' 
' La France ! ' and arrived in safety at the King's 
camp, thanking God with all his heart for his deliver- 
ance from so great a danger. The first man he met 
was the Due de Lorraine, by whom he was particu- 
larly beloved and esteemed. The Due was much 
astonished to see him unarmed and in such a plight. 
Bayard related his adventure to him, and the Prince 
immediately gave him a splendid horse, which had 
formerly been presented to him by Bayard himself, 
who had won him at the taking of Brescia. The 
brave knight, being once more mounted, was grieved 
at being without liis helmet, not only because he was 
so much heated with walking, but lie did not consider 
the battle over yet. Al tliis moment he saw near 
him a gentleman wlio liail his helmet carried b\' his 
page ; he borrowed it, and returned it after the battle, 
which did not end until midday. The Swiss after- 
ward attacked the French, but at length were de- 
feated, and left 12,000 of tiieir men on the Held. 

" In the evening, during supper, the King (Fran- 
9ois I") talked a great deal of this battle, and of those 
256 



Appendix. 

who had distinguished thcmseh^es in it. All voices 
united to give the palm to the brave Knight Bayard, 
who, as he always did, had performed deeds of great 
valor, and who received from the King the most 
glorious reward that a subject has ever received from 
his prince. The King insisted upon receiving the 
order of knighthood from Bayard's hands. He ex- 
cused himself with his ordinary modesty, saying that 
such honor belonged not to him, but to the princes 
of the blood only ; but Francis was determined, and 
ordered him to do his bidding in these words : ' Be- 
fore bestowing the honor of knighthood on those 
who have distinguished themselves in battle, I must 
receive that honor from one who is a knight ; for 
which reason. Bayard, my friend, I wish to be 
knighted by your hand, because he who has fought on 
foot and on horseback better than all others to-day is 
reputed the most worthy knight. It is thus with 
you, who have fought in many battles with many na- 
tions. So, Bayard, make haste, and quote neither 
laws nor canons. Do my will and command, if you 
wish to be among the number of my good servants.' 
" ' I can only obey,' replied Bayard, and taking his 
sword, he said : 'In good truth, you are the first 
Prince that ever was made a Knight. God grant that 
in battle you may never fly.'- Then having kissed his 
sword, and holding it in his right hand, he said : 
' Glorious sword, that to-day hast had the honor of 
knighting the noblest King in the world, I will only 
employ thee in future against the enemies of the 
Christian name. In truth, my good sword, thou shalt 
be kept as a sacred relic, and honored above all others.' 

He then replaced it in its scabbard As winter 

257 



Appendix. 

approached, Francis went to Paris, and Bayard accom- 
panied him. The pubHc praises were renewed on his 
arrival ; the French Parhament sent him a deputation 
of Presidents and Councilors to compliment him upon 
the many services he had rendered to the King and 

the whole kingdom After some stay in Paris, 

he went to pass the winter at Grenoble, when it would 
be superfluous to tell of the reception that awaited 
him, and \\\t fetes that were made for him, for besides 
his quality as Lieutenant-General of the Province, he 
belonged to the highest nobility of Dauphine, and this 
nobility felt it an honor to partake of his laurels." 
"On his return in the spring to Grenoble. from Italy, 
he found that the plague had broken out there. He 
had opportunity then to exercise his two favorite vir- 
tues, watchfulness and charity. He provided for all, 
nourished at his own expense the poor sick, and as- 
sisted them with donations of all kinds, surgeons and 
medicine, extending his cares and benefits to the 
monasteries and convents. In short, Bayard was, no 
doubt, the cause of the speedy cessation of the terrible 
scourge." — Champicr, Dc Bervillc, Robertson. 

In 1524 Francis was endeavoring to hold his Mi- 
lanese possessions in Italy. Opposed to him was the 
Spanish Marquis de Pescara, and Charles Due de 
Bourbon, both allies of Italy. The command of the 
French army was given to Bayard. " Francis had 
aspired to be elected Emperor ; and that Charles V. 
should have been preferred to him was one cause of 
the life-long struggle between these two ambitious 
monarchs." ("The Marquis de Pescara was a noble 
man, and although the opponent of Bayard, he atl- 
mired him profoundly. He was the husband of the 
258 



Appendix. 

celebrated Vittoria Colonna, who was the first poei 
of Italy to tune her lyre to sacred subjects, and it 
may not be too much to say that, with the exception 
of Michael Angelo, she is the only one. In making 
this assertion we almost prove her Protestantism.") 
" During the campaign in Lombardy, in 1524, an inci- 
dent occurred, which is graphically described by all 
historians, showing the knightly conduct of the noble 
Francesco di Pescara to the celebrated Chevalier Bay- 
ard, who fell wounded in the battle of the Sessia, a 
small river near INIilan. When he had arrived on the 
Sessia, and was about to cross that river, Pescara and 
Bourbon attacked him with great fury. The conduct 
of the rear was committed to Bayard, whose com- 
mand sustained the shock of the enemy and gained 
time for the rest of the French to make good their 
retreat ; but in this service he received a wound which 
he at once knew to be mortal." The " Loyal Servant" 
who wrote his life thus describes his death : " The ar- 
tillery and flags were thrown forward and in safety, 
when about ten o'clock in the morning an arquebuse 
was fired, the stone of which fractured his spine. 
When he felt the l)low his first words were : ' Jesu ! 
O God ! I am slain,' and he exclaimed, ' Miserere 
mei, Deus, secundum magnum misericordiam tuam.' 
Then he waxed quite pale as one swooning, and nearly 
fell, but had still strength to grasp his bow, and re 
mained in this position till a young gentleman, his 
steward, helped him to dismount. He kissed the 
cross-hilt of his sword, using it as a crucifix. ' It is 
all over,' he said ; ' I am a dead man, but do not wish 
in my last moments to turn my back to the enemy 
for the first time in my life.' He was placed at the 

259 



Appendix. 

foot of a tree, ' so that I may have my face toward 
them.' All were bathed in tears. To Jacques Jeoffre, 
a gentleman from Dauphine, he said: 'Jacques mon 
ami, laisse ton deuil. C'est le vouloir de Dieu de 
m'oter de ce monde ; j'y ai, par sa grace, longuement 
demeure, et j'ai rccu des biens et des honneurs plus 
que je merite.' .... ' Je supplie mon Createur 
d'avoir pitie de ma pauvre ame. Je te prie, Jacques 
mon ami, qu'ou ne m'enleve pas de ce lieu ; car, quand 
je me remue, je sens toutes les douleurs qu'il est 
possible de sentir, hors la mort, laquelle me prendra 
bientot.' Soon the Spanish General, the Marquis de 
Pescara, arrived near him, and, with tears in his eyes, 
said to him : ' Would to God, Lord Bayard, that I 
might have given all the blood I could lose without 
dying, to have taken you prisoner in good health ! 
You shall know how much 1 have always esteemed 
your person, your bravery, and all the virtues that you 
possess, and that since I have held arms I have never 
known your like.' The Lord of Pescara had his own 
tent and bed brought immediately, had it spread close 
by the dying man, and himself helped him to lie upon 
it, kissing his hands the while. He gave him a guard 
so that he should neither be crowded nor pressed upon, 
and himself brought a priest, to whom Bayard con- 
fessed with perfect consciousness and edifying piety. 
Being left alone, Bayard thought only of his approach- 
ing death ; he recited devoutly the 'Miserere,' after 
which he prayed aloud. Dcatli soon interrupted his 
words. His first cry, when he felt himself mortally 
wounded, was the name of Jesus, and it was while 
invoking His adorable name that Bayard gave up his 
soul to his Creator on the 30th .\pril, 1524, aged 

forty-eight years." 
260 



Appendix. 

The Spaniards showed as sincere regret at the death 
of their noble enemy as did the French. The guard 
that the Marquis of Pescara had given him, bore him, 
according to that nobleman's orders, into the nearest 
church, where services were said over him for two 
days, after which they gave his body to his gentle- 
men and servants, with passports to transport it to 
France. When the King (Francis I.) heard of his 
death, he was sorely afflicted for many days, and paid 
this tribute to him : "We have lost a great Captain, 
whose name alone made his arms feared and honored. 
Truly, he deserved more benefits and higher charges 
than those he had." The body was taken to France, 
into the province of his birth, to be placed there ac- 
cording to his last wishes, near his ancestors, in the 
Church of Cresinou. The procession passed through 
Piedmont and Savoy ; and everywhere the Duke of 
Savoy gave orders that it should be received with the 
same honors that would have been paid to a prince 
of the blood, that services should be performed for 
him in all the churches on the route, and that his 
body should rest there at night. When they arrived 
at Dauphine, the nobility and peasantry of Grenoble 
went before the cortege and conducted it into the 
Cathedral Church, where a service was performed, not 
in a ducal, but in a kingly manner—" non ducali modo 
sed regio apratu." As he had ordered, his body was 
taken, not to Cresinou, but to a convent near, founded 
by his uncle, Laurent AUeman, Bishop of Grenoble. 
There he rests under a large stone, under the foot of 
the steps of the chancel. On the right-hand side is 
his bust in white marble, wearing the collar of his 
order, and on a white marble slab beneath, an inscrip- 
tion in Latin of the " Good Knight Bayard." 



Appendix. 

Bayard was tall, upright, and not too stout ; his 
face was fair with a fresh color, and his eyes were 
black and full of fire. He was extremely merry, al- 
ways even-tempered, and his own conversation, even 
on the most serious occasions, was spiced by witty 
remarks. 

The sword of Bayard, which was long sought for, 
is said to be in possession of Sir John Boileau, Bart. 
On it were two inscriptions, " Soli Deo Gloria " and 
" Vincere aut mors." A shield, given by the Knight 
to Henry VIII. , at the "field of the Cloth of Gold," 
is in the guard's chamber at Windsor Castle. 

" Le monument de Bayard etait depuis plusieurs 
annt§es dans I'eglise Saint-Andre, lorsqu'un prefet du 
departement, se chargea du soin de reunir a ce monu- 
ment les cendres du guerrier, dont il rappelait le sou- 
venir. Le depot de ces restes dans le caveau de Saint- 
Andre fut fait aussi en presence de I'eveque de Gren- 
oble qui les attendait a la porte de I'eglise ; on a in- 
scrit sur la pierre qui recouvre le cercueil : 

Ci-Git Bayard. 

" Les restes, retrouves dans I'eglise des Minimes de la 
Plaine, et authentiquement reconnus, ont ete recueillis 
et deposes sous cette pierre, le 24 aout 1822." 



II. 

Rev. Nicholas Bayard, a French Protestant cler- 
gyman, took refuge in the Netherlands after the mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. His signature ap- 



Appendix. 

pears attached to the Articles of the Walloon Synod 
in 1580. Tradition reports that he had been a Pro- 
fessor of Theology in Paris, and connects him with 
the family represented by the famous Knight, "sans 
peur et sans reproche." 

In the next generation (1608) Lazare Bayard, per- 
haps a son of Nicholas, was enrolled among the Wal- 
loon clergy of Holland. 

About the year 1620, in the reign of Louis XIII., 
the Rev. Balthazar Bayard went from France to Hol- 
land, to escai)e religious persecution, which culminated 
later in the " Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," 
taking with him his daughter Judith and his son 
Samuel, the former soon marrying Petrus Stuyvesant, 
the newly-appointed Governor of New Amsterdam 
in America, and the latter Anna, the Governor's sister. 
From the similarity of names it is probable that the 
family is the same as that of Bayard, ' sans peur et 
sans reproche.' " Cette seigneurie passa en 1581, 
dans la maison de Simiane, par le mariage d'Anne 
d'Avangon, avec Balthazar de Simiane, Marquis de 
Gordes. Plusieurs de leurs descendants ne dedaigner- 
ent point de joindre a leur nom celui de 'Seigne^ir,' 
et de 'Comte de Baya7'd.' " Nicholas is also a name 
handed down from early date. — From a history in 
preparation by Rev. Charles IV. Baird. 



HI. 

Henry Havard, in " The Dead Cities of theZuyder- 
Zee," and in his recently published book, " The Heart 
of Holland," presents the depressing accounts of the 

263 



Appendix. 

swallowing up of the many cities of this doomed 
country. '^' It is melancholy to think that their great- 
ness has departed. The land around it is all affected 
by that subtle disease, the ' VaV ; the word is derived 
from the word ' Vallen' to sink, and is used in tech- 
nical language to express the sudden destruction by 
water, whose ravages are so terrible. In 1530 twenty 
villages disappeared totally in one night, with the 
island on which they stood, and they remain forever 
under the waters. The place which they occupied is 
now the great arm of the sea, with its little shimmer- 
ing waves glittering in the sun ! That ceaseless strife 
in which the unexpected is aKvays turning up, and 
man is pitted against the elements, has not abated for 
a single moment. The green fields, the meadows, the 
cities, the villages, and the rustic dwellings are built 
all upon a bottomless gulf, an abyss, which some day 
or other will yawn and close up again, after it has 
swallowed trees and houses, peasants and cattle, and 
substitute blank desolation for these fortunate-seem- 
ing isles. That terrible ' l^al' which eats away the 
life of this country like a mysterious canker, is awful 
to think of. One day the traveller may pass by a 
green expanse with a thriving farm-house ; horses are 
neighing, children are playing, the trees are bending 
beneath the weight of fruit, and the sweet-smelling 
hay has been made into large round stacks. On the 
following day everything will have disappeared with- 
out leaving a trace. The soil has sunk away, the sea- 
green water gurgles tranquilly in its ])lacc. In vain 
do we look for a stone or fragment. Only nothing- 
ness is there. What has become of this little portion 
of the human family in one night, this particle of the 
264 



Appendix. 

soil, this atom of the country ? No one knows, and 
science itself, reduced to conjecture, can suggest no 
remedv for an evil of which it can only register the 
facts, but can not divine the cause." 

Gtiiccardini, who sailed on these waters, and coasted 
these green isles, has written as follows : " It would 
be unnecessary to describe them one after the other, 
all the more that the greater part of them have been 
transposed by tempests and inundations of the sea, 
and have changed their beds, this one becoming larger, 
and that diminishing in size ; this one being swallowed 
up by the waters, and that being laid bare by them ; 
for the country of Zealand gaining on the one side, is 
on the other ravaged by the sea. The land was for 
some time without fear of peril, but now the waters 
are beginning to eat into it, and the old story of three 
centuries ago is true of to-day." "In 1873 the Polder 
of Borselen, 31 English acres in extent, sank into the 
waters. Each year the terrible Val devours some 
space or other, carrying away the land in strips. That 
little dike before us dates no further back than 1835, 
but it was originally of much greater size. This 
dread disease has already eaten up one-third of it." 

The old city of Kampen, to which Kamperven 
owes, not only its name, but its existence, and which 
figures with its boundaries, its houses, and its streets, 
upon an old manuscript map of the fifteenth century, 
which is still to be seen at the Dutch war office, dis- 
appeared suddenly in the abyss of waters. Of Alphcn 
(the city our ancestors are said to come from), I can 
find no trace. 



265 



Appendix. 
IV. 

FRIESLAND, THE HOME OF GOVERNOR STUVVESANT. 

" Mai.heureusement c'est du cute de la mer que 
vient le plus souvcnt la menace. Ouand les vents 
d'ouest, ou du Noid soufflent avec leur indomptable fu- 
rie, La Frise commence a trembler, et les vieux Prisons, 
se rappelent avec anxiete les sombres recits que leur a 
transmis I'histoirc." " Lorsque la tcmpete se dechaine 
ecrivait 11 ya trois siecles, le croniquer Cornelius Kem- 
pius, les flots se prt'cipetent avec one telle fureur, que 
les clochers des eglises, les maisons les plus hautes et 
les plus solides, sont ebranlees, et souvent meme jetees 
bas. Les arbres deracines, et les plus pesant navires, 
enleves par la force des elements, sont portes dans 
I'interieur des terres. Pendant le mois de Fevrier, 
1825, plus d'un tiers de la province fut submerge par 
la mer et par les rivieres, qui, subitement grossies, 
s'ouvrirent un ])assage a travers les digues qui re- 
glaient leur cours. Ajoutez a ccla qu'une pluie torren- 
tielle, les eclairs et la foudre se joignirent aux flots 
pour livrer a I'liommc un des plus rudes assauts qu'il 
ait jamais eu a sujjporter. L'eau commcnya a se 
rt'tirer le troisiemc jour, et alors seulement on se 
peut rendre compte des ravages qu'elle avait commis 
et des morts qu'elle avait causees." — Hciwi Havard. 

"La Prise Hc'nie!" doit scni nom a la gigantesque 
inondation de 1230, (|ui charria sur son sol de telles 
quantites de terrains d'alluvion, (lu'elie transforma en 
grandes prairies, des landes demeurees jusqu'alors 
desertes." — -La Ilollatide ci Vol d'Oisseatc. 
266 



Appendix. 



V. 



The Honorable William Smith, late Chief-Justice 
of Lower Canada, in his History of New York, 
says : " If Leisler had delivered the garrison to Colo- 
nel Sloughter, as he ought to have done, upon his 
•first landing, besides extinguishing in a great degree 
the animosities then subsisting, he would doubtless 
have attracted the favorable notice both of the Gov- 
ernor and the Crown. But being a weak man, he 
was so intoxicated with the love of power that, though 
he had been well informed of Sloughter's appoint 
ment to the government, he not only shut himself up 
in the fort with Bayard and Nicolls, whom he had 
before this time imprisoned, but refused to deliver 
them up or to surrender the garrison. From this 
moment he lost all credit with the Governor, who 
joined the ot-lier party against him. On the second 
demand of the fort, Milbourne and De La Noy came 
out, under pretence of conferring with his Excel- 
lency, but in reality to discover his designs. Slough- 
ter, who considered them as ' rebels,' threw them both 
into jail. Leisler, upon this event, thought proper to 
abandon the fort, which Governor Sloughter imme- 
diately entered. 

" Bayard and Nicolls were immediately released 
from their confinement, and at once sworn of the 
Privy Council. 

" Leisler, having thus ruined his cause, was appre- 
hended, with many of his adherents, and a commis- 
sion of Oyer and Terminer issued to Sir Thomas 

267 



Appendix. 

Robinson, Colonel Smith, and others, for their trial. 
In vain did they plead their great zeal for King Wil- 
liam, whose Governor they had so lately opposed. 
Leisler, in particular, endeavored to justify his con- 
duct, insisting that Lord Nottingham's letter entitled 
him to act in the quality of Lieutenant-Governor. 
Whether it was through ignorance or sycophancy, I 
know not ; but the judges, instead of pronouncing 
their own sentiments upon this part of the prisoner's 
defence, referred it to the Governor and Council, 
praying their opinion, whether that letter, ' or anv 
other letter or papers in the packet from White-llall, 
can be understood, or interpreted, to be and contain 
any power or direction to Captain Leisler, to take 
the government of this province upon himself, or 
that the administration thereupon be holden good in 
law.' The answer was, as might have been expected, 
in the negative ; and Leisler and his son-in-law were 
condemned to death for ' hio;h treason.' " 



VL 

EBENEZ.^R VETCH AND WIFE. 

TiiK father of Governor \'etch died the day after 
his wife, in 1722. William, his brother, died as 
stated. 

Kev. Ebenezar, anollier brother, died young. He 
married a young lady of very great personal attrac- 
tions, but died soon after. Calling liis wife to his 
bedside, he told her he would give her his parting 



Appendix. 

kiss, and recommended her to his God, who, he said, 
" has been all in all to me," and when she asked him 
whether he would not desire to live with her and 
serve God in the Church below, he answered in the 
negative. Then calling out to some of the ministers 
who were in the room with him, said, " Ye passengers 
for glory, how near, think you, am I to the New 
Jerusalem ?" One of them answered, " Not far, sir." 
He rejoined, " I'll wait and climb until I be up 
among that innumerable company of angels and the 
spirits of the just men made perfect." They re- 
moved his wnfe out of the room ; but, when he was 
just expiring, she rushed in to the bedside. Waving 
his hand, he said, " No more converse with the creat- 
ure ; I never, never will look back again," and imme- 
diately breathed out his spirit into the hands of his 
redeeming God. 

" This lady was afterward married to Mr. Robert 
W'odrow, minister of Eastwood, the celebrated inde- 
fatigable historian of the sufferings of the Church of 
Scotland. The marriage rings presented to the lady 
by both her first and second husband are still pre- 
served as family relics. The identical ring presented 
by Mr. Ebenezar Vetch is a plain gold one, with 
small ivory beads around its outer edge, and within 
is this Latin inscription, which we have some diffi- 
culty in translating intelligibly. We give it, verbatim 
et \Iiteratini, as we see it, and leave our readers to 
make out what they can : ' Ebenezar, ct JcJwvah, 
Fcitch.' The sense which we conjecture is not very 
luminously conveyed, but it seems to savor of the 
eminent Ppiety of its author. The other wedding 
ring, presented by the historian Wodrow to the same 

269 



Appendix. 

lady is now before me, and its moral is more intel- 
ligible. The device is a flaming heart in the centre, 
with a hand on one side giving and on the other re- 
ceiving, and this plain English motto : ' I give you 
mine, and grasp at yours.' From these specimens 
we see that the clerical gentlemen of our olden times, 
while they were not destitute of learning, were not 
devoid of the tender affections." 



VII. 

LADY GRISELL BAILLIE. 



A FEW of the statements recording the sufferings 
of the Covenanters are given, to show the trials and 
miseries to which all classes were exposed who un- 
happily fell into the hands of those " fiends in human 
shape," the staunchest men and the most gentle 
women alike sharing those tortures, actuated by the 
will and determination of their Scotch natures, never 
flinched or wavered through all those years of misery, 
until those evil days were overpast, and Prelacy was 
overthrown by the accession of William and Mary, 
the Protestant King and Queen of England. 

" Lady Grisell Baillie, of Jerviswood, began her 
life during the troubles of the persecution. She was 
the daughter of Sir Patrick Hume, and her father was 
one of the most distinguished patriots and statesmen 
of the day, and suffered not a little for his zeal in the 
cause of religion and liberty. Having remonstrated 
against oppression, he was imprisoned as ' being a 
270 



Appendix. 

factious person,' and sent to Stirling Castle, where 
he remained a close prisoner for many months. At 
the time of her father's liberation Lady Grisell was 
little more than ten years of age, and soon after 
those romantic incidents occur in her young life 
which have given her an historical celebrity. Her 
parents, even at this early age, often sent her on 
confidential missions, which she executed with sin- 
gular fidelity and success. In the summer of that 
same year, when Sir Robert Baillie, of Jerviswood, 
was imprisoned by a wicked persecutor, she was sent 
by her father from his country-home to Edinburgh, a 
long way distant, to try if, from her age, she could 
get admittance into the prison unsuspected, and slip 
a letter of information and advice into his hand, and 
bring back from him what intelligence she could. 
Proceeding on her journey to the capital, she suc- 
ceeded in her object. The authoress of ' Legends 
of Exalted Characters ' has imagined the manner in 
which the little messenger got into the cell occupied 
by Baillie. She describes him, while sitting in his 
dark dungeon, sad and lonely, as hearing something 
moving softly toward him, and, seeing the child, ex- 
claiming, 

" ' Such sense in eyes, so simply mild ! 
Is it a woman, or a child ? 
Who art thou, damsel sweet ? are not my eyes beguiled ? ' 

" To which the little visitant answers : 

" ' No — from the Redbraes' Tower I come, 
My father is Sir Patrick Hume : 
And he has sent me for thy good, 
His dearly honored Jerviswood. 
Long have I round these walls been straying. 
As if with other children playing ; 

271 



Appendix. 

Long near the gate have kept m)* watch, 
The sentry s changing-time to catch. 
With stealthy steps I gained the shade 
By the close-winding staircase made, 
But when the surly turnkey entered. 
Into this dark cell I softly ventured.' 

" But in whatever way young Grisell got access to 
Baillie, and whatever were the circumstances of their 
interview, she accomplished successfully the object of 
her mission. Her father was soon made prisoner 
and sent to Dumbarton Castle, where he was kept 
nearly a year. During the time of his imprisonment 
his young daughter made repeated journeys to the 
place of his confinement to carry to him intelligence 
or minister to his comfort, her tender age enabling 
her to be less suspected than an older messenger. 
When, a year later, her father was implicated in 
some patriotic measures for preventing a Popish suc- 
cession to the British throne, he was allowed to re- 
main undisturbed in his own house till the month of 
September, when orders were issued for his appre- 
hension, and on two occasions parties of troops had 
searched his house to apprehend him. He found it 
necessary to keep himself in concealment until he got 
an opportunity of going over to the Continent. 

" The spot to which he betook himself for shelter 
was the family burying-place, a \'ault underground, 
at his church at Polwarth, at the distance of a mile 
from his house. Where he was no person knew but 
Lady Hume, Lady Grisell, and one man, whom they 
deemed trustworthy, and in whose fidelity they were 
not disappointed. They got a bed and clothing car- 
ried there during the night and deposited them in his 
hiding-place, and there he was concealed for a month. 
272 



Appendix. 

While he abode in this receptacle for the dead, Gris- 
ell, then seventeen years or so old, administered to 
his temporal wants and comforts. Regularly at mid- 
night, when all were sunk in sleep, she went alone to 
thts dreary vault, carrying to him a supply of food 
and drink ; and to bear him company she stayed as 
long as she could, taking care to get home before day. 
She had a great deal of humor in telling a story, and 
during her stay she took a delight in telling him such 
incidents of her home life as had amused her, and 
these were often the cause of much mirth and laugh- 
ter to them both. At first she had a great terror of 
a churchyard, but her affectionate concern for her 
father made her soon stumble over the graves alone, 
fearless of everything but soldiers in search of him. 
The manse of the minister of the parish was near the 
church, and the first night she went on her errand, 
his dogs continued to bark with such incessant vio- 
lence a's to put her into the utmost dread of discovery. 
In this emergency, necessity suggested it to her mo- 
ther that the^most likely means of getting quit of this 
cause of annoyance was to endeavor, if possible, to 
make the minister beheve that his dogs were mad, and 
that, therefore, it was dangerous to retain them. She 
therefore sent for him the next day, and, succeeding 
in producing on his mind the intended conviction, 
got him to "hang them all. There was also at times 
Jreat difficulty in getting food to carry to her father 
without exciting suspicion, and the only way in which 
she got it was by sliding off her plate into her lap at 
dinner and concealing it until she could escape obser- 
vation. Many an amusing story she was wont to tell, 
after the davs of persecution had closed, about this 

273 



Appendix. 

and other things of the like nature. Her father Hked 
sheep's-head, and one day while the children were 
eating their broth, she had succeeded in conveying by 
stealth the most part of one into her lap. When her 
little brother Alexander had disposed of his broth, he 
looked up in the hope of getting something more to 
eat, and perceiving with astonishment the empty dish, 
exclaimed : ' Mother, will you look at Grisell ; while 
we have been eating our broth, she has eat up the 
whole sheep's-head.' This occasioned much mirth 
among them all, and when Grisell told her father the 
story, he was greatly amused, but desired that ' Sandy 
might have the whole share the next time.' During 
all this time Sir Patrick Hume, having a natural happy 
temperament of mind, showed the same constant com- 
posure, which he possessed to the end of his life. He 
had no light to read by, but could commit to memory 
Buchanan's Latin version of the Psalms. This ver- 
sion he retained in his memory to his dying day, nor 
did he ever miss a word in repeating it. After sundry 
alarms, and fears of discovery, and the reports of the 
executions of many of his dearest friends, among 
them Sir Robert Baillie, of Jerviswood, preparations 
were made for him for a departure to a foreign land, 
which, after many narrow escapes, he succeeded in 
reaching. He went to Holland, that place of refuge 
for all the worn and oppressed servants of the Gospel 
in those days. He had not been long in Holland 
when the news of the death of Charles H. reached 
him. After the death of Sir Robert Baillie, his son 
had also sought retreat in Holland with many exiles. 
He had met Lady Grisell in his father's cell in Edin- 
burgh, and in his exile his affection for her increased, 
274 



Appendix. 

and was reciprocated, though, as neither of them had 
a shining, they deemed it unwise to make the circum- 
stance known to the parents, and long they kept 
silence ; but having, after the Revolution, been put in 
possession of his father's estate, which had been gifted 
to the Duke of Gordon, Baillie made known to her 
parents the engagement between them, and he and 
Lady Grisell were married at Redltracs Castle in 1692. 
At the same time Sir Patrick Hume (his political 
and personal troubles being now over) was in high 
favor with King William, and enjoyed in security that 
wealth and honor to which his sufferings in the cause 
of religion and liberty so well entitled him." — Ladies 
of the Covenant. 

All classes suffered alike, rich and poor, honored 
and unknown. Well was it for poor, down-trodden, 
though undaunted Scotland, that she had such hero- 
ines as the following well-known legend shows : 

THE MAIDEN MARTYR. 

BY NATHANIEL W. CONKLING, D.D. 

About two hundred years ago, 

On Scotland's western shore, 
A strange, sad sight was witnessed : 

Strange e'en for days of yore. 
And stranger still for Scotland, 

Land of the free and leal. 
Where conscience owns no master 

Save God's own sovereign will. 

The land where Chalmers thundered, 
Where Knox braved Pope and Queen, 

Where holy men unnumbered, 
Loyal to Christ, were seen 

275 



Appendix. 

Departing from hearths and homes, 
Whilst the deep-dyed flag of blue 

Proclaimed full well to powers and thrones, 
" To God the Scots are true." 

Yet on a bright May morning, 

Three hundred years ago, 
Down to the sands of Blednock 

A procession moves on slow. 
The tide is out that morning. 

The sands spread wide and fair, 
And overhead the sun shines. 

And softly breathes the air. 

And why this great procession. 

This marching through the streets, 
The town of Wigton all astir. 

While loud the drummer beats? 
The Laird of Lagg rides foremost. 

The soldiers likewise ride. 
And all are marching onward 

Down to the ocean side. 

Sad sight ! — two helpless women 

Are guarded either side : 
The one, with gray hair streaming. 

The other, fair as bonnie bride ; 
One bowed with years and sorrows. 

To be pitied and upborne ; 
The other lithe, young, lovely 

As the opening of the morn. 

They are bringing these two women. 

This matron and this maid, 
From out the loathsome prison, 

And e'en to death, 'tis said : 
For the Council they have ordered 

That on this day of May 
276 



Appendix. 

This matron and this maiden 
Must die in Wigton bay. 

For these two hapless women 

Have refused to take the oath, 
The oath of objuration, 

Demanded of them both ; 
Have rejected the "Conformity" — 

Which were denial of their Lord ; 
And, though death the fearful penalty, 

They swerve not from their word. 

In the tideway of the ocean, 

Both far olT from the shore, 
Are seen two stakes deep driven 

Where soon the waves will roar ; 
And look ! the elder of the two 

Is led along the sands, 
And to that stake the matron 

Is tied with strongest bands. 

Then to the other station 

The other is quickly led — 
There have but eighteen summers 

Passed o'er that fair young head ; 
Yet in this opening morning 

Of her life, as of the Spring, 
This gentle maid is doomed to die 

For Christ's sake, her true King. 

And now the tide is waxing — 

Advancing sure and slow. 
And she who faces death the first. 
Meets the crested ocean's flow ; 
And as she sinks beneath it 
In mortal agony, 
■' What see you yonder? " ask the crowd 
Of the one who yet is free. 

277 



Appendix. 

Oh answer full of Heaven-born faith ! 

" I see," the maid replied, 
"The Saviour Christ now suffering 

In one for whom He died." 
And as they tied her to the stake, 

There floated out a song, 
Which told how Christ doth ever make 

The soul that trusts Him, strong. 

She sang a Psalm of Da\'id — 

" O God, my Heavenly King, 
To Thee I lift my soul this day 

Of my sore suffering ; 
I trust in Thee, my Saviour, 

I trust alone in Thee ; 
Now pardon, bless, and help me, Lord, 

And take mc unto Thee." 

Full soon the roaring billows 

Drown the music of her Psalm ; 
Her head rests on no pillow 

Within her chamber calm. 
While loved ones whisper to her. 

In words of hope and prayer, 
The promises of Jesus, 

So gracious and so near. 

Yet, ere the waters whelm her. 

One rushes through the wave. 
His mighty love impelling 

His chosen bride to save ; 
He lifts her in his strong arms, 

And with beseeching prayer 
Entreats the one he loves so well, 

For him e'en now to care : 

" Oh, Maggie, my own darling. 

This is an awful thing; 
278 



Appendix. 

To save thy precious life, dear, 
Just saj', 'God save the King.' 

Aye, save him, an' He will ; 
I wish no other thing ; 

I pray with all my heart, love, 
May God save Scotland's King." 

' She has said it ! she has said it ! 

Now let the lassie free." 
But, as he spake, a soldier 

Came splashing through the sea ; 
He lifts his sword above her, 

He swears that she shall die, 
Unless she takes the oath that makes 

The Covenant a lie. 

' That impious oath I will not take, 
And thus deny my Lord ; 
He loved me, even unto death, 

I'll be faithful to His word ; 

I hear His voice! He calls me 

To the regions of the blest. 

Where the wicked cease from troublins. 

And the weary are at rest." 

279 



THE LIFE AND SERVICES 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 



BY DANIEL D. BARNARD. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Hon. Daniel D. Barnard. 

Dear Sir, 

At a meeting of the Albany Institute, held April 15, 
1839, it was unanimously Resolved, that the thanks of the 
Institute be presented to the Hon. Daniel D. Barnard, for his 
able and interesting Discourse on the Life and Services of 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, and that he be requested to furnish 
a copy of the same for publication. 

As Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, I have 
been instructed to make this communication. 

I remain, with sentiments of high respect and esteem. 

Yours truly, 

T. ROMEYN BECK. 
April 16, 1839. 



Albany, April 17, 1839. 
Dear Sir, 

My Discourse on the Life and 'Services of our late 
President, Stephen Van Rensselaer, having been prepared 
and delivered at the request of the Institute, the Manuscript 
will be placed at the disposal of that Body. 

With great respect and regard, 

* I am, dear sir, 

Faithfully yours, 

D. D. BARNARD. 
Dr. T. RoMEVN Bf.ck. 

283 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



Those who did the Author the honor to attend the de- 
livery of this Discourse, will find in it some passages and 
paragraphs which were then omitted for the sake of brevity. 

The Historical Sketch contained in the Appendix was 
read before the Institute at one of its regular meetings ; and 
has been thought of sufficient public interest to be worth 
preserving. It was prepared chiefly from a personal exami- 
nation of the Manuscript Records in the Office of the Secre- 
tary of State at Albany. It is presented, by request, in con- 
nection with the Discourse delivered before the Institute, as 
belonging not inappropriately to the subject and the occa- 
sion ; indeed, it will be seen that it formed originally a part 
of the Discourse itself, from which it was necessarily severed 
on account of its length — its place being supplied in the 
body of that paper by a brief reference to some of the lead- 
ing facts contained in the Sketch. 

284 



THE LIFE AND SERVICES 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 



Tup: Albany Institute, f embracing in its objects a wide 
field for observation and study, is made up of three princi- 
pal Departments, each having its President, Vice-President, 
and other appropriate Officers. It was formed originally by 
the union of two Societies previously existing under sep- 
arate charters. At the organization of the Institute, on the 
5th of May, 1824, STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER, then at 
Washington as the Representative in Congress from this 
District, was unanimously selected to preside over its de- 
liberations. He Filled, at the time, the Presidency of the 
Albany Lyceum of Natural History, henceforth to be 
merged in the Institute ; and there was every thing in his 
position and standing, as well as in his direct connection in 
many ways with the objects of the new Society, to make 
the compliment of the selection deserved and proper; yet 
it was found that his own regards, with characteristic mod- 
esty, had been directed towards another worthy and eminent 

* A Discourse on the Life, Services, and Character of Stephen 
Van Rensselaer, delivered before the Albany Institute, April 15, 
1839, by Daniel D. Barnard. 

t Changed in name to " Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute." 

2S5 



The Life and Services of 

citizen, as fittest to occupy the Chair ; and it was only after 
much hesitation and reluctance that he communicated to a 
friend on the spot his permission and request to decide the 
question of acceptance or refusal for him. It hardly need 
be added that the office was promptly accepted in his be- 
half. By the Charter of the Institute, this office is made 
elective annually ; and every year, since the same agreeable 
act was first performed, and with the same unanimity, have 
the Members of this Society offered the same grateful 
testimonial of their respect and affection for their beloved 
President. Alas ! my Friends and Fellow-Members, that 
offering of ours has been made for the last time. We are 
now called, in common with the whole country, to mourn 
his loss. He departed this life on Saturday, the TWENTY- 
.SIXTH DAY OF JANUARY last. It was at FOUR o'clock in 
the afternoon, of a day which had dawned upon him with 
as fair a promise of closing on him in life, as any, perhaps, 
which he had seen for the last two years, that in a small 
Cabinet of his ample mansion, which his infirmities had 
made his chief as}'kim and sanctuary for many months, sit- 
ting in his chair, with just warning enough to convey the 
intimation to his own mind that his hour had come, without 
enough of previous change seriously to alarm the fears of 
anxious, watchful, and trembling hearts around him, the 
venerable man bowed his head, and died. 

In the affecting ceremonies of his funeral, the Members 
of the Institute had their humble part. It had been re- 
solved, in special session, that they would attend the funeral 
of their President in a body. This, however, was not all 
their duty. It was thought to belong a[)propriatcIy to 
them to gather up the memorials of his life and services, 

and cause them to be arranged and presented before the 
286 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

Society in a regular Discourse. It has pleased those whose 
charge it was to make the selection, to assign the duty of 
preparing and presenting this tribute to me. They might 
have found many to perform the service more acceptably ; 
not one, since the time had come when the duty must be 
discharged by some body, to whom it could have been a 
more grateful office. 

In entering on the execution of this trust, I should have 
been glad, if time had permitted, to have claimed the indul- 
gence of my audience, f^rst of all, to carry them back to a 
period in history somewhat remote from the times to which 
the distinguished subject of this Memoir more immediately 
belonged. Some of the acts of his individual career, and 
the traits of his beautiful character, when we should reach 
them in the progress of our narrative, would, I think, have 
developed themselves much the more strongly for the light 
which might thus have been thrown on them from the past. 
They would have been found, some of them at least, to 
have been linked backward, by unbroken chains, to the 
times and events of other and even distant generations. 
Men's virtues, any more than their vices, are not all their 
own. To some extent they are inheritors of virtues, and to 
some extent they are moulded by circumstances. They 
may be trained in schools of which the masters are dead 
long and long before, and of which nothing remains but the 
transmitted lessons that were taught without intending to 
teach them. In his personal history, Mr. Van Rensse- 
L.\ER was subjected to the strong influence of great events 
—events powerfully affecting property, and rights, and 
ideas, and character. He was born the subject of a King, 
and he was born to a Chartered Inheritance, which gave 
him the right to a considerable share of Feudal honors and 



TJie Life and Services of 

Feudal power ; at twenty-one, however, he had become, 
through a forcible and bloody Revolution, a citizen of a 
free Republic, with only his own share, as such, with all his 
fellow-citizens, in the popular sovereignty of the country. 
He was the proprietary of a remarkable landed interest — 
remarkable for any country — connecting him and his affairs 
directly with an ancestry, and through that ancestry with a 
people, in a portion of whose doings and history are bound 
up some interesting and valuable materials for the proper 
Illustration of events and characters in later and even 
present times, in this part of our country. As such pro- 
prietary, looking to the earlier periods of his life, he repre- 
sented, in his own person, a state of things in regard to 
property and its incidents, and the structure of social and 
political institutions, which in his own time and in his own 
hands passed away forever — not, however, without leaving 
behind them their strongly-marked and indelible traces ; 
and, looking at him from the days of his manhood onward, 
he was, in his character and in his relations, a living witness 
and illustration of some important contributions which a 
former age had made to the present, and by which the feat- 
ures of the latter, as stamped by a new order of things, 
were not a little modified. Undoubtedly we change with 
the times ; }'et no age can choose but wear, more or less 
strongly, the lineaments of its parent age — the complexion, 
even a very great way off, will shew a tinge from the blood 
that was in the original fountain. He, the subject of our 
present reflections, stood, in one sense, between the present 
and the past ; between two distinct and even opposite 
orders of things, and he belonged in a manner to both. 
His life reached forward well into the heart of the Repub- 
lican system — and the whole country did not contain a 



Stcplicii I'an Rensselaer. 

more thorough RepubUcan than he was — while his days ran 
back to a period when a feudal Aristocracy, of which he 
was himself a part, had a legalized and legitimate growth in 
the soil of this our native land. He was a thorough Re- 
publican, in a Republican State, and yet he bore to his 
death, by common courtesy and consent — never claimed, 
but always conceded — the hereditary title which had an- 
ciently attached to the inheritance to which he had been 
born. 

The title, as is well known to you, by which he was usu- 
ally addressed and spoken of amongst us was that of Pa- 
troon. This title was derived, evidently, from the Civil 
Law, and the Institutions of Rome. In the time of the 
Roman Republic, the Latin Patrouus was used to denote a 
Patrician, who had certain of the people under his imme- 
diate protection, and for whose interests he provided by his 
authority and influence. At a later period, and after the 
power of Rome had been greatly extended by her con- 
quests, individuals and families of the noble order became 
Patrons of whole Cities and Provinces, and this protective 
authority, with large and extensive legal and political rights 
and powers, in some instances descended by inheritance. 
The family of the Claudii was vested with this patronage 
over the Lacedemonians ; and that of the Marcelli over the 
Syracusans. It was partly from this source, it may well be 
supposed, that the Dutch, who had adopted the Civil Law, 
derived the idea of governing a remote territory, not easily 
to be reached by the Central Authorities, by committing it 
to the ample Jurisdiction of a Patroon.* This title was 



* I have seen the " Jus Paironatus " of the Roman Law expressly 
referred to, in an Official MS. of the Dutch Authorities themselves, 
as the foundation of the powers and jurisdiction committed to the 
Patroons of New Netherlands. 

289 



Tlic Life and Services of 

not applied in Holland, so far as I know, to any order in 
the State there, nor was it employed in, or by, any other of 
the Countries of Europe. It was not a title of personal 
nobility, as that term is understood in Europe since the 
time when Monarchs assumed the right of conferring these 
distinctions by creation or patent. It belonged exclusively 
to the Proprietors of large Estates in lands, occupied by a 
Tenantry ; and like the title of Seignior, which the French 
bestowed with the Seigniories, or large territorial estates 
•and jurisdictions in Lower Canada, on the first colonization 
of that country, it was deemed especially proper for Trans- 
atlantic use. Yet it had attached to it, in connection with 
proprietorship, the usual incidents and privileges of the 
old feudal Lordships, in direct imitation of which, both title 
and estate, with their jurisdictions, were instituted. It may 
be added as worth remarking, that, in the case before us, 
this title has run on, and been regularly transmitted, with 
the blood of the first Patroon, down to our day, though it 
is now a Century and three Quarters since the Inheritance 
ceased to be a Dutcii Colony, to which alone the title prop- 
erly attached, and became, by Royal authority, after a for- 
eign conquest, an English IVIanorial possession ; and though, 
in later time, a Revolution has intervened bj- which the 
Estate was fully shorn of its Manorial character antl attri- 
butes, leaving to the proprietor, now for the last fifty years, 
to hold his property merely by the same simple tenure and 
ownership, with which every freeholder in the country is 
invested. 

IVlK. Van RknSSKLAKR was the fifth only in the direct 

line of descent from the original proprietor and Patroon of 

the Colony of Rensselaerwyck. This personage, the founder 

of the Colony, was a man of substance and character. He 

290 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

was a merchant of Amsterdam, in Holland, wealthy, and of 
high consideration in his class, at a time when the Mer- 
chants of Holland had become, in effect, like those of Italy, 
the princes of the land. He was that Killian Van Rensse- 
laer referred to in our recent Histories as having had a 
principal share in the first attempts made by the Dutch 
towards colonization in America. 

1 think this occasion would have been held to justify a 
more particular reference to the part which this Ancestor of 
the late Mr. Van Rensselaer had in American Coloniza- 
tion, and especially at the important point where we are 
now assembled ; and that it would not have been out of 
place, to have introduced the personal memoirs of the latter, 
by a portion at least of that curious and hitherto neglected 
history which attaches to the Colony and Manor of Rens- 
selaerwyck— that identical landed estate and inheritance, 
which, nearly in its original integrity, though stript of its 
accessories, we have seen held and enjoyed, in our time, by 
a lineal descendant of the first Proprietor. But the una- 
voidable length to which the briefest outline of that History 
runs— though fully prepared, after the labor of considerable 
research— has compelled me, reluctantly I confess, to lay it 
entirely aside. I must needs content myself now with 
some very general facts and observations in this connection. 
Killian Van Rensselaer— to whom I just now referred— 
was a large proprietor, and a Director in the Amsterdam 
Branch of the Dutch West India Company. This Company 
was incorporated in 1621, and was composed of an associate 
band of merchant-warriors and chiefs, with a chartered do- 
main and jurisdiction as well for conquests, as for trade and 
colonization, extending in Africa from Cancer to the Cape, 
and in America from the extreme South to the frozen re- 

2gi 



The Life and Services of 

gions of the North, and with the right to visit and to fight 
in every sea where their own or a national enemy could be 
found. Ample powers of government also attended them 
everywhere. After they had obtained a footing in this 
country, a College of Nine Commissioners was instituted to 
take the superior direction and charge of the affairs of New 
Netherland. Killian Van Rensselaer was a member of this 
College. This was in 1629. The same year a liberal Char- 
ter of Privileges to Patroons and others was obtained from 
the Company. Colonization by the Dutch had its origin 
and foundation in this extraordinary Instrument. The same 
Instrument provided also for founding a landed and Baro- 
nial Aristocracy for the Provinces of the Dutch in the New 
World. Early in the ne.xt year, with the design of estab- 
lishing his Colony under the Charter, Van Rensselaer sent 
out an Agency, when his first purchase of land was made of 
the Indian Owners, and sanctioned by the Authorities of 
the Company at New Amsterdam. Other purchases were 
made for him in subsequent years, until 1637, when, his full 
complement of territory having been made up — nearly iden- 
tical with the Manor of our day, and forming, as subse- 
quently defined, a tract of about twenty-four miles in 
breadth by forty-eight in length — Killian Van Rensselaer 
himself came to take charge of his Colony. Many of his 
colonists were already here, and others were sent out to 
him — all at his own cost. The full complement for his 
Colony, required by the Charter, was one hundred and fifty 
adult souls, to be planted within four years from the com- 
pletion of his purchases. 

The power of the Patroon of that day was analogous to 
that of the old feudal Barons ; acknowledging the Govern- 
ment at New Amsterdam, and the States General, as his 
292 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

Superiors. He maintained a high militar)- and judicial au- 
thority within his territorial limits. He had his own for- 
tresses planted with his own cannon, manned with his own 
soldiers, with his own flag waving over them. The Courts 
of the Colony were his own Courts, where the gravest ques- 
tions and the highest crimes were cognizable ; but with ap- 
peals in the more important cases. Justice was adminis- 
tered in his own name. The Colonists were his immediate 
subjects, and took the oath of fealty and allegiance to 
him. 

The position of the Colony was one of extreme delicacy 
and danger. It was situated in the midst of warlike and 
conquering Tribes of Savages, which, once angered and 
aroused, were likely to give the Proprietors as much to do 
in the way of defence, and in the conduct of hostile forays, 
as were used to fall to the lot of those bold Barons of the 
Middle Ages, whose castles and domains were perpetually 
surrounded and besieged by their hereditary and plundering 
enemies. Happily, however, the Patroons of the period, 
and their Directors, or Governors of the Colony, by a strict 
observance of the laws of justice, and by maintaining a 
cautious and guarded conduct in all things toward their 
immediate neighbors, escaped— but not without occasions 
of great excitement and alarm— those desolating wars and 
conflicts which were so common elsewhere among the infant 
Colonies of the country. 

While, however, they maintained, for the most part, 
peaceable relations with the Indian Tribes around them, 
they were almost constantly in collision, on one subject or 
another, with the authorities at New Amsterdam, and those 
in Holland. The boundaries of rights and privileges be- 
tween them and their feudal Superiors were illy defined, 

293 



TJie Life and Services of 

and subjects of disagreement and dispute were perpetually 
arising. Here, at this point, was the chief mart of trade, at 
the time, in the Province; and this trade fell naturally into 
the hands of the Proprietors of the Colony. Not a little 
heart-burning and jealousy, on the part of the Company, 
was excited on this account, especially when the Director of 
the Colony was found to have set up his claim to " staple- 
right," amounting to a demand of sovereign control over 
the proper trade of the Colony against all the world, the 
Company alone excepted, and had made formidable prepa- 
rations to enforce his right by the establishment of an 
Island Fortress, planted with cannon, and frowning over 
the channel and highway of the river. The little village of 
Beverwyck, too, clustering under the guns of Fort Orange — 
the germ of the City of Albany — became debatable ground. 
The soil belonged to the Colony, and was occupied with 
the proper colonists and subjects of the Patroon. The 
Company thought fit to assert a claim to as much ground 
as would be covereci by the sweep of their guns at the Fort. 
This was of course resisted on one side, and attempted to 
be enforced on the other ; and so sharp did this controversy 
become, and so important was it deemed, that Governor 
Stuyvesant, on one occasion, sent up from Fort Amsterdam 
an armed expedition to invade the disputed territory, and 
aid the military force at l''ort Orange in su[)porting the 
pretensions of the Company — an expedition wholly unsuc- 
cessful at the time, and happily, too, as bloodless as it was 
bootless. But I can not pursue this singular history in this 
place. 

In 1664 the Fnglish Conquest of the Province took place. 
The Colony of Rensselaerwyck fell with it. Jeremiah Van 
Rensselaer, the second son of Killian, was then in posses- 
294 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

sion. He died in possession in 1674. The line of the eldest 
son of KiUian, the original proprietor, became extinct ; and 
in 1704, a Charter from Queen Anne confirmed the estate 
to KiUian, the eldest son of Jeremias Van Rensselaer. The 
subject of our present Memoir was the third only in the 
direct line of descent, in the order of primogeniture, through 
the second son of this Killian Van Rensselaer, the eldest 
son having died without issue. The Estate came to him by 
inheritance, according to the canons of descent established 
by the law of England. It never passed, at any time, from 
one proprietor to another by will, nor was it ever entailed. 

By a Royal Charter of 1685, the Dutch Colony of Rens- 
selaerwyck had been converted and created into a regular 
Lordship, or Manor, with all the privileges and incidents 
belonging to an English estate and Jurisdiction of the Man- 
orial kind. To the Lord of the Manor was expressly given 
authority to administer justice within his domain in both 
kinds, in his own Court-leet and Court-baron, to be held by 
himself or by his appointed Steward. Other large privi- 
leges were conferred on him ; and he had the right, with 
the freeholders and inhabitants of the Manor, to a separate 
representation in the Colonial Assembly. All these rights 
continued unimpaired down to the Revolution. 

For eighty-four years immediately preceding the Revolu- 
tion, the Manor was never without its Representative in 
the Assembly of the Province-always either the Proprietor 
himself, or some member, or near relative, or friend of the 
family. Nearly the whole of this entire period was filled up 
with a series of hot political controversies between the As- 
semblies and the Royal Governors. I have looked into the 
records of these contests, and 1 have not found an instance 
from the earliest time in wh>ch the Proprietor or Represen- 

295 



The Life and Services of 

tative of the Manor was not found on the side of popidar 
liberty. The last of the Representatives was that stern 
patriot and Whig, General Abraham Ten Broeck. He was 
the uncle of the late Mr. Van Rensselaer, the last of the 
Manorial Proprietors, and his Guardian in his non-age, and 
had a right, therefore, to speak and act in the name of his 
Ward. His official efforts, though often in a minority in 
the Assembly, were untiring to bring the Province of New 
York into a hearty co-operation with her sister Colonies in 
their movements towards Revolution. 

This brief reference to the connection of the Manor, and 
of the family whose possession and estate it was, with the 
political history of the period preceding the Revolution, 
may serve not only to do justice to the parties concerned, 
and thence incidentally to vindicate, if there were need of it, 
the conduct of the Dutch inhabitants of this Province with 
reference to the progress of free principles, but also to shew 
that great as the change certainly was in the personal for- 
tunes and prospects of the late Mr. Van Rensselaer, be- 
tween his birth and his majority, )'et, in truth, that change 
was neither sudden nor violent ; that it was altogether easy 
and natural ; that the way had already been prepared ; and 
that, though born as he was to hereditary honors and aris- 
tocratic rank, he yet, while still a youth, was carried, by the 
strong current of the times, over the boundary — to him, at 
the period, but little more than an imaginary line — between 
two very opposite political systems ; and found himself, at 
his prime of manhood, and when called to take his own part 
in the active scenes of life, not only a contented, but a glad 
and rejoicing subject and citizen of a free Republic. With 
the histor)' of the past before him ; in possession of an es- 
tate which connected him nearly with feudal times and a 
296 



StcpJicn J\ti/ Rcnsselaa\ 

feudal ancestry, and which constituted himself, in his boy- 
hood, a Baronial Proprietor, instead of what he now was — 
the mere fee-simple owner of acres, with just such political 
rights and privileges as belonged to his own freehold ten- 
antry, and no other — it would not, perhaps, have been very 
strange if he had, sometimes, turned his regards backwards, 
to contemplate the fancied charms of a life, sweetened with 
the use of inherited power, and gilded with Baronial honors. 
Nothing, however, I feel warranted in saying, was ever far- 
ther from his contemplations. He had no regrets for the 
past. He was satisfied with his own position , and though 
the Revolution, in giving his country independence, had 
stript him of power and personal advantages, yet as it had 
raised a whole nation of men to the condition and dignity 
of freemen, and so -to a political equality with himself, it 
was an event which, to a mind attuned as his always was to 
a liberal and enlightened philanthropy, was only to be 
thought of with the strongest approbation and pleasure. 

But I come now to recount — which I propose to do in 
the plainest and simplest manner, as best according with the 
modesty of his own pretensions and character — those events 
in the life of Mr. V.VN RENSSELAER which constitute his 
personal history. 

He was born on the first day of November, 1764, in the 
city of New York. His father was Stephen Van Rensse- 
laer, the Proprietor of Rensselaerwyck. His mother was 
Catharine, daughter of Philip Livingston, Esquire, of the 
family of that name to which belonged the Manor of Liv- 
ingston. Mr. Livingston was conspicuous among those 
lofty and disinterested spirits brought out by the American 
Revolution in devotion to human liberty. He was one of 

the Signers of that undying instrument — the Declaration 

297 



Tlic Life and Services of 

of Independence. At the period of the birth of his grand- 
child, which took place in his own house, he was a member 
of the General Assembly, and at that time, more than ten 
years in advance of the Revolution, in an Answer to the 
Speech of Lt. Gov. Golden, which was reported by him, he 
put forth and insisted, in explicit terms, on that great doc- 
trine of " taxation only with consent," the denial of which 
by Great Britain finally brought on the conflict of arms. 

The present Manor House of Rensselaerwyck was com- 
pleted in 1765, when the subject of our Memoir was a year 
old. It took the place of a structure, the site of which was 
near by, and which had answered, in its day, the uses of a 
fortress, as well as a dwelling. To this, the new Manor 
House, his father directly resorted. His occupation of it, 
however, was short. He died in 1769, of a pulmonary dis- 
ease, leaving his son, his eldest born, a few days less than 
five years old, and transmitting to him a constitutional 
weakness of the chest, which shewed itself in very alarming 
symptoms in his minorit)', but happily afterwards disap- 
peared. His father left two other children, a son and 
daughter. The latter still survives. 

On the death of his father, the care of that great landed 
and feudal estate, which fell exclusively to him, by the rule 
of primogeniture, was committed to his uncle, Gen. Ten 
Broeck, by whom it was faithfully managed — as far as the 
disturbed state of the times would allow — during the minor- 
ity of his Ward. For a while he remained under the con- 
trol and supervision of his excellent and pious mother — 
long enough no doubt to receive those deep imjjressions of 
the value of religious faith and the beauty of holy things, 
which were finally wrought firmly into the texture of his 

character. 

298 



Stephen J \in Rensselaer. 

His first experience in school was under the labors of Mr. 
John Waters, a professional Schoolmaster, at a period when 
a Schoolmaster was what he always should be, a man of 
consideration. It was before the days of Webster and 
printed Spelling-books, and when the letters and elements 
were studied and taught from a ?l<irn-book. And thus was 
he initiated into these mysteries. The school-house, with 
its sharp roof and gable to the front, still holds its ground 
in North Market-street, nearly opposite the stuccoed church 
of the Colonic, in this city. And the blood of John Waters 
— the professional .Schoolmaster — is still with us, and run- 
ning in the \'eins of some of our most worthy and respect- 
able citizens. 

But the education of the young Proprietor was to be pro- 
vided for in a way which required his early removal from 
the side and hearth of his mother. This care devolved on 
his grand-father; and he was first placed by Mr. Livingston 
at a school in Elizabeth Town, in New Jersey. When the 
stirring and troublous times of the Revolution came on, 
Mr. Livingston was driven with his family from the city of 
New York, and took refuge at Kingston. Here, fortunate- 
ly, was established a Classical School, or Academy, which 
attained no small celebrity under the direction of Mr. John 
Addison. Addison was a Scotchman, possessing the thor- 
ough scholarship of an educated man of his nation, and 
without an}- lack of the shrewdness and strong sense so apt 
to be found among his countrymen. He became a man of 
consideration in the State, and filled the office of State 
Senator about the beginning of the present century. Mr. 
Livingston, much absent from home himself on public af- 
fairs, caused his young charge to be domesticated in his 
own family, for the convenience of his attendance on the 

299 



The Life and Services of 

instruction of Addison. He acquired the elements of a 
classical education at the Kingston Academy. The late 
venerable Abraham Van Vechten — -one of the noblest speci- 
mens of humanity which it has pleased God ever to create 
— was his fellow-student at this school ; and here was 
formed between the two a close and confidential intimacy 
and friendship which death alone was able to interrupt. 

But the time soon came when it was necessary to supply 
the growing student with more ample advantages. The 
celebrated Dr. Witherspoon — scholar, divine, patriot, and 
statesman — had arrived in this country a few years before 
the Revolution, and, taking charge of the College of New 
Jersey at Princeton as President, had raised the reputation 
of that Institution to a very high pitch. The Revolution 
dispersed the students and broke up the College, and the 
learned and ardent Witherspoon, dri\'en from Academic 
shades, plunged into the business of the War. He, too, 
was a Signer of the Declaration. He was still in Congress 
in 1779; but he had determined to retire at the close of 
that year, and resuscitate his beloved College. In the sum- 
mer of that year Congress instituted a Commission, the 
members of which were to proceed northward to investi- 
gate, on the spot, the troubles to which the country was 
then subjected by the inhabitants of the New Hampshire 
Grants. The Doctor was in the North on this Commission, 
and on his return, took, by arrangement, young Van Rens- 
SELAEK with him, to make one of the few who should be 
gathered, in the autumn, under the wing of the re-animated 
College. Gen. Washington's Head Quarters were then in 
the Highlands, at New Windsor. Stony Point had just 
fallen into the hands of the enemy, who had also a footing 

in New Jersey. The worthy Commissioner ami his charge 
300 



Stephen 1 ail, Rensselaer. 

received from the General the protection which the tinnes 
required. Our student passed on his way to his first essay 
in College life under a military escort. He was placed in 
the family of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Smith, the son-in-law of 
Dr. Witherspoon, and Vice-President of the College, to 
whom the immediate care of conducting the instruction of 
the Institution was now committed. But New Jersey was 
not yet safe from the incursions of the enemy; Princeton 
was still too near the seat of war ; and the next year it was 
thought advisable to remove the young Collegian to the 
University at Cambridge, then, as now, a distinguished and 
leading school of the higher kind in the United States. Here, 
in 1782, in the nineteenth year of his age, with respectable 
attainments in the classical and other learning of the time, 
he took his first degree in letters as a Bachelor of Arts. It 
may be added, in this connection, that in 1825, he received 
from Yale College a Diploma conferring upon him the hon- 
orary degree of Doctor of Laws. 

The war of the Revolution was ended in 1782, though 
peace was not proclaimed till the next year. Mr. Van 
Rensselaer was now at home, still two years under age, 
too late escaped from the University to put on armor for 
his country, without any motive to apply himself to the ac- 
quisition of professional learning of any sort, his estate yet 
under guardianship and properly cared for; and what was 
he to do? The natural refuge of a young man thus situ- 
ated, and no doubt as safe as any which he would be likely 
to take, was in matrimony. He was married, before he was 
twenty, at Saratoga, to Margaret, the third daughter of 
Gen. Philip Schuyler ; and thus was he connected, by a 
near relationship, and one, as it proved, of great confidence 

and affection, with another of those extraordinary men 

301 



The Life and Services of 

whose names so crowd and illumine the pages of our Revo- 
lutionary history. 

His excellent mother, a discreet and exemplary christian, 
had, in 1775, united herself in marriage with the Rev. Dr. 
Eilardus Westerlo, an original Dutchman, a fine scholar, an 
eminent divine, and, at the time, and long before and long 
after, the installed pastor of the Dutch Churcli in this city, 
where he preached in the Dutch language for the first fif- 
teen or twenty years of his ministry. The mother of Mr. 
Van Rensselaer still resided with her husband at the 
Manor House, at the time of his marriage ; but the ample 
Parsonage of the good Dominie, in North Market-street, 
was then unoccupied, and there he bestowed his bride, to 
await the period when, having attained his legal majority, 
he should take possession of his inheritance. When that 
time came, the proper exchange of domiciles took place be- 
tween him and his mother. 

The occasion of his reaching the important age of twenty- 
one was celebrated with much of that kind of rousing ob- 
servance, which, without being inappropriate, would have 
fitted more perfectly, perhaps, his relations as a Landlord, 
if the event had transpired ten years earlier. But as it was, 
and changed as the political relations between him and his 
tenants had become within that time, they were not to be 
restrained from offering, on this event, the testimony of 
their joy, and their affection for his person, as if he was still, 
instead of being simply a contracting party with them in 
regard to their lands, as much their Patroon and feudal Su- 
perior, as his ancestor was of their fathers in the time of 
Petrus Stuyvesandt. The Tenantry were certainly not as 
numerous, by any means, as they have since become ; but 

such as they were, they poured in upon him from the ex- 
302 



Stephen Vati Rensselaer. 

tremes of the broad territory, nor did they leave him till 
they had done ample justice to the liberal cheer which he 
had provided for their entertainment. 

This event fairly disposed of, Mr. Van Rensselaer 
found it necessary to look somewhat critically after his in- 
terests in the Manor. He was in possession of a very large 
landed interest, but one which could not be managed with- 
out great expense, and from which he found the returns 
not only moderate, but small. The interests of the country 
too, as well as his own, required that these lands should be 
cultivated. Comparatively few of them had yet been con- 
verted into farms. The Revolution had just closed, and 
left the country poor. Speculators would buy lands— as 
they always will— but farmers, the laborious tillers of the 
soil, were unable, or unwilling, to contract for the fee. By 
offering Leases in fee, or for long terms, at a very moderate 
rent— sometimes hardly more than nominal— Mr. Van 
Rensselaer succeeded readily, in bringing a large propor- 
tion of his lands, comprising the greater part of the present 
counties of Albany and Rensselaer, into cultivation ; and 
thus securing to himself a valuable and competent income. 
This policy once adopted by him, was never changed. Nor 
did he ever after attempt, as he might easily have done, 
greatly to increase his current means derived from this 
source. The net returns from his lands, never exceeded, 
probably, two, if they did one, per cent upon them, con- 
sidered as a capital at a very moderate valuation. But find- 
ing himself in the receipt of a current income, large enough 
for his simple and unostentatious habits, and those of his 
family, with something liberal to spare for his charities, he 
was not only not desirous of adding to his wealth by en- 
hancing his receipts, but he was positively and strenuously 

303 



TJic Life and Services of 

averse to such a course. He had none of that morbid ap- 
petite for wealth which grows ravenous by what it feeds on. 
And this it was, I have no doubt — the strong disinchnation 
to cumber himself with useless accumulations — which led 
him to neglect improvements, suggested often by the inter- 
est of others, and on account of which, because he could not 
bring himself to feel and indulge that passion for profit and 
gain which consumed those around him, he was sometimes 
subjected to heavy censures. 

Mr. Van Rensselaer received his first military Com- 
mission, as a Major of Infantry, in 1786; then at the age of 
twenty-two ; and he was promoted to the Command of a 
Regiment two years afterwards. In 1801, Gov. Jay di- 
rected the Cavalry of the State to be formed into a sep- 
arate Corps, divided from the Infantry to which the Horse 
had before been attached. The Cavalry formed a single 
Division, with two Brigades, and the command of the whole 
was conferred on Mr. Van RENSSELAER. This Commis- 
sion of Major General of Cavalry he bore to his death. 

In presenting, as nearly as may be in the order of time, 
the events of this good man's life, I must not omit to men- 
tion one in this place, certainly of no inconsiderable im- 
portance, if only considered as affecting our right judgment 
of his character. It was in the spring of 1787, when he 
was short of twenty-three years of age, in the vigor of man- 
hood, just on the threshold of mature life, which sparkled 
brightly before him, with large possessions, and wealth 
enough to lay the world under contribution for whatever it 
can afford to pamper appetite and passion, and supply the 
means of wanton and lu.xurious indulgence ; it was then, 
and under such circumstances, that he deliberately chose, 

by a formal profession of religious faith, and a personal 
304 



Stephen Vail Rensselaer. 

vow of religious obedience, according to the doctrines and 
discipline of the Christian Church as adopted by the Dutch 
Reformers, to pledge himself to a life of temperance, sim- 
plicity, truth and purity. How well he kept his vow, is 
known to all who had occasion to observe him ; and how 
eminently he was blest in keeping it, was seen in all those 
quarters, where, I think, the Christian is wont to look for 
the promise of the life that nozv is — in the calm and quiet 
of a peaceful existence, in domestic relations of the most ten- 
der, harmonious and beautiful character, and in a resigned, 
appropriate and happy death. 

Towards the close of the year 1787, the Convention which 
sat at Philadelphia to frame the Federal Constitution, ter- 
minated its labors, and submitted its work to the judgment 
of the people. All over the country a desperate conflict 
arose, and, no doubt, the fate of the Republic was suspend- 
ed on the issue. Mr. Van Rensselaer took ground 
promptly and decidedly in favor of the Constitution. In 
the Spring of 1788, Delegates to the State Convention, 
which was to pass sentence of condemnation, or approval, 
on the Constitution, in the name of New York, were to be 
chosen from the county of Albany. The anti-federal party, 
strong throughout the State, was particularly formidable 
here. This was the residence of Yates and Lansing, both 
popular and influential, and both of whom, having acted as 
Delegates, had left the Convention at Philadelphia before 
its labors were finished, and published a joint letter to the 
Governor, setting forth their reasons for refusing to put 
their names to the Constitution. That their counsels, and 
the counsels of those with whom they were associated po- 
litically, would prevail in this quarter of the State, on this 
important trial of the strength of parties, was hardly to be 

305 



Tlic Life and Services of 

doubted. Yet were the friends of the Constitution bound 
to make the effort, and, in so doing, to leave no part of 
their moral force out of the controversy. With this object, 
Mr. Van Rensselaer was solicited, and consented, to 
stand as a Candidate for the Assembly, at the same election. 
The sway of anti-federal opinions and feelings at the period, 
may be estimated from the fact that, with all his personal 
popularity and influence — already very great in the district 
— he was beaten by an overwhelming majority. But popu- 
lar majorities, even where the right of voting is restricted 
as it then was, are not always remarkable for their stability ; 
and happy they should not be — certainly when they chance 
to be in the wrong. 

The Constitution having been adopted after a fearful 
struggle, the government was to be organized and put in 
full operation under it. Ground enough of difference in 
regard to it, was still left — barely enough — for parties to 
stand on; but the popular mind began to sway strongly 
over to the side of the Constitution. In the Spring of the 
very next year, 1789, Mr. Van Rensselaer was again a 
candidate for the Assembly, and was now carried into office 
by a majority nearly as great as that by which he had been 
before defeated. And now, having once got right, never 
was a constituency more steadfast to a faithful public serv- 
ant. In the course of the next forty years after, he had 
occasion often to try the strength of their attachment to 
him ; and on no occasion did the county of Albany, whether 
comprising more or less territory, and whether the elective 
privilege was less or more extended, ever desert him. 

The first Session of the Legislature, to which Mr. Van 
Rensselaer was now elected, was held in the summer, 
under the Proclamation of the Governor, for the special 
306 



Stephen J \xn Rensselaer'. 

purpose of electing, for the first time, Senators in Congress. 
The same question which has since, and more than once, 
been agitated, respecting the mode of election, divided the 
councils of the State at that period. The federal party, 
and those who desired to clothe the Federal Government 
with all necessary' strength and stability, insisted on a mode 
of election which should give the Senate, equally with the 
popular branch of the Legislature, a separate and independ- 
ent action. Mr. Van Rensselaer was of this number. 
The anti-federal party preferred a mode of election, by 
joint ballot or otherwise, which should subject Senators in 
Congress more certainly to the popular will of the State, as 
it should be currently expressed in the annual elections to 
the Assembly. The question to be sure was one growing 
out of the language of the Federal Constitution, and, there- 
fore, a question of constitutional law ; but men of different 
parties at that day, as well as at this, were wont to read the 
Constitution through an atmosphere of their own, usually 
too much clouded to allow the light from any objects to 
pass through it in straight lines ; hence of course they read 
it differently, and not unfrequently both sides read it 
wrong. The Legislature on this occasion separated without 
settling on any mode of electing Senators — except for it- 
self ; Senators were elected by the Joint Resolution of the 
two Houses. 

Mr. Van Rensselaer was now fairly embarked in po- 
litical life. The ne.xt spring — 1790 — he was elected to the 
Senate of the State, from the Western Senatorial District. 
When we look over this State, and see what the West now 
is, we hardly know how to credit the fact that, within so 
few years, the county of Albany, on the North River, was 
one of the Western Counties of the State. In the spring 

307 



The Life and Services of 

of 1794, the same Senator from the same Western District 
was re-elected. He was a member of the Senate from his 
first election down to 1795. In the whole of this Legisla- 
tive period he was a faithful, vigilant, highly influential and 
useful member. There were few standing Committees at 
that period ; but he was from the first, and always, a mem- 
ber of one or more of these, and always of the most im- 
portant. 

In the second year of his senatorial services, 1792, parties 
were thrown into a prodigious ferment by certain proceed- 
ings of the State Canvassers, in regard to a portion of the 
votes taken at the Gubernatorial election of that year. Mr. 
Jay and Mr. Clinton had been the opposing candidates. The 
popular voice had declared itself, by a moderate majority, 
in favor of Mr. Jay ; but the Canvassers found some infor- 
malities, and legal difficulties, which induced them, by a 
party vote, to reject the returns from three counties, by 
which Mr. Jay's majority was lost, and Mr. Clinton was de- 
clared elected. When the Legislature met in the autumn, 
petitions were poured in upon it from the people, and a 
legislative investigation was had. It appeared in testimony, 
that the rejected ballots had at first been regularly deposited 
in appropriate boxes in the record-room of the Office of 
the Secretary of State ; and that afterwards, without con- 
sent obtained at the office, Mr. Thomas Tillotson, a State 
Senator, and one of the Canvassers, in the presence how- 
ever of several of his fellows, took from their place of de- 
posit among the archives of the State, the boxes contain- 
ing the rejected ballots, and committed them to the flames. 
However pure the motives for an act of this sort, the act 
itself was not one which was likely to meet the approbation 

of the pure and single-minded VAN Rensselaer. His 
308 



Stephen Van Rcnssc/acr. 

scornful reprobation of the part enacted by Mr. Tillotson, 
uttered in no equivocal terms, brought him into a per- 
sonal collision with that gentleman, which was likely to put 
his life, or his reputation, or both, into imminent hazard. 
But those who attempted to deal with him had quite mis- 
taken the temper of the man. Though one of the mildest 
of men in his ordinary demeanor, he was yet one of the 
firmest. He was the last person on earth to be moved by 
intimidations. Being in the right, or thinking himself so, 
he would allow nothing to be wrung from him which would 
abate, by a feather's weight, the full moral force of the lan- 
guage he had used. Happily, this admirable firmness, with 
the steadiness and quiet which distinguished his manner, 
when most pressed upon by difificulties and danger, saved 
him from an abyss into which, no doubt, the least wavering 
or trepidation would have plunged him. 

When the next election for Governor approached, in 
1795, Mr. Jay was again placed in nomination, and, with 
him, Mr. Van Rensselaer was nominated for Lt. Gov- 
ernor. The circumstances under which Mr. Clinton had 
served, as Governor, during the current term, were deemed, 
by his party, such as to render unwise his renomination at 
the present time. Mr. Yates and Mr. Floyd were the op- 
posing candidates. Mr. Jay and Mr. Van Rensselaer 
were elected by handsome majorities. In 1798, both were re- 
nominated, and both re-elected, to the same offices. On this 
occasion, Chancellor Livingston was Mr. Jay's opponent — 
only very lately his strong friend, political as well as personal. 
The Lt. Governor had no opposing candidate. He was 
named universally throughout the State, by the anti-federal- 
ists, on their ticket with Chancellor Livingston. The de- 
sign was to detach him, if possible, after the example of the 

309 



The Life and Services of 

Chancellor, from the federal party, and from the support of 
Gov. Jay. No doubt it was in his power to have given to 
the Chancellor and his friends a complete triumph. It is 
probable that no one individual in the State, at the period, 
carried with him a greater personal influence and sway. So 
desirable was it deemed to secure him, or at least to make 
the people believe he was secured — that the Chancellor's 
party did not hesitate to employ the fact before the electors, 
though without the least warrant, as if it had been true. 
Of course, he took the most prompt and effectual measures 
to disabuse the public mind on a point of so much impor- 
tance. 

I will not hesitate, on an occasion like this, and when 
dealing with matters of great historical interest, to say what 
I think. I think, then, that New York has never seen so 
pure an administration of its government, as that which was 
conducted by Mr. Jay. I think this is already the settled 
verdict of an enlightened public sentiment. He could not 
have had, during the six years of his administration, a purer, 
or more worthy coadjutor than Lt. Governor Van RENSSE- 
LAER. Never could there have been, or could there be, a 
moral spectacle of higher beauty, than was seen in the lofty 
and universal harmonies of thought and intent, of feelings, 
character and purposes — the perfect blending of harmonious 
colors, till nothing was visible but the white light of truth 
and integrity — when the honest and true-hearted Huguenot 
and the honest and true-hearted Dutchman united to ad- 
minister the government of a free people. 

It is not surprising then, when the communit)' — such of 
them as were attached to the administration and j)rincii)Ics 
of Gov. Jay — came to look after a fit person to be his suc- 
cessor, that all eyes should have rested on the Lt. Governor. 
310 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

In January, 1801, a large body of the most respectable free- 
holders, from various and distant parts of tli£ State, assem- 
bled at the Tontine CofTee House in Albany, and unani- 
mously named Mr. Van Rensselaer as their candidate 
for Governor at the ensuing election. How he received this 
mark of public approbation and esteem, and with what diffi- 
culty his acceptance was finally obtained, appears from the 
publications of the time. His opponents, for lack of better 
matter, took serious exceptions, if not to him, to his party, 
because he had given to the invitation, more than once, a 
positive refusal. His nomination was enthusiastically sec- 
onded in the City of New York, and in public meetings 
held in every quarter of the State. His election was advo- 
cated everywhere by his friends, on grounds which shewed 
that his character — young as he was — was already developed, 
and was thoroughly understood and appreciated. His com- 
petent acquaintance with the interests and business of the 
State; his tried and reliable judgment; his unconquerable 
firmness ; his decision and energy in emergencies ; his pu- 
rity ; his many virtues; his retiring and domestic habits; 
his humility; his urbane and gentle manners — these were 
the qualities attributed to him by his friends, and in no case 
denied by his opponents. The rage of party politics was 
becoming extreme, and, in their rancor, poisoned the blood 
of friends and families, and seemed ready, vulture-like, to 
tear the vitals of the Republic. He was the man — so at 
least his friends thought — above any other man of the period 
— the man of peace — fitted to soften the asperities, to rec- 
oncile the enmities and calm the turbulent agitations of the 
time. If his opponents thought differently, they scarcely 
ventured to say so. They thought he was rich, and that 
those with whom he had business relations would be likely 

3" 



The Life and Services of 

to vote for him, and hence they thought the genuineness of 
his repubHcan,principles was fairly to be doubted — this they 
thought, and this they ventured to say. But I should do a 
great wrong to the party opposed to him, if I should leave 
it to be inferred that he was defeated on such grounds — or 
that I supposed so. Mr. Clinton, after having been laid 
aside for six years, was now brought forward as his oppos- 
ing candidate. Mr. Clinton was popular, and there was 
much in his character and history to make him deser\'edly 
so. But besides this, the Republican party — in wliicii the 
anti-federalists were now merged — had acquired prodigious 
strength from the serious apprehensions which were felt in 
the country on account of some of the measures, and the 
apparent tendencies of the Federal Government, in the 
course i)f the last four years. In the midst of the cam- 
paign in this State, the election of Mr. Jefferson to the 
Presidency was announced ; the fate of parties in this State 
was decided, and decided for a long time to come. Mr. 
Van Rensselaer was defeated, by a majority of a little 
less than four thousand votes. 

With this defeat, Mr. Van Rensselaer's ofificial service 
in the civil departments of the Government — with a single 
exception, to which I shall advert directly — was ended for 
several years. I feel certain that, on his own account, he 
was very far from regretting this discomfiture. It left him, 
as it chanced, the very leisure and quiet which he needed. 
It was in the month of March of this year, and while the 
election canvass was going on most actively and virulently, 
that he was called to part with the companion and wife of 
his youth. How sensibly he was affected by it, I have rea- 
son to know, when nearly thirty years afterwards, he re- 
ferred to this event in a very touching manner, and, with 
312 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

many tears, poured his generous sympathy into the bosom 
of a friend under similar bereavement. By his first mar- 
riage, he had three children, one of whom only — his eldest 
son — survives. 

In October, 1801, a State Convention met at Albany to 
consider and revise the Constitution, in regard to two speci- 
fied subjects. One of these subjects was the proper con- 
struction to be given to the twenty-third Article of the 
Constitution, which established the old Council of Appoint- 
ment. A violent party controversy had arisen in Mr. Jay's 
time, concerning the right of nomination. It was claimed 
by the Governor, from precedent and otherwise, to belong 
exclusively to him ; the members of the Council chal- 
lenged an equal right to make nominations. The Conven- 
tion was called mainly to determine this question, and, hav- 
ing a strong party character, was regarded as having been 
instructed to reverse the doctrine and decision of the Gov- 
ernor. The subject of our Memoir was a member of this 
body, and was opposed to the majority. Col. Burr was the 
President, but Mr. V.\N RENSSELAER presided during 
much the greater part of the deliberations, as Chairman of 
the Committee of the Whole. 

In May, 1802, Mr. Van Rensselaer formed an appro- 
priate, and highly fortunate and happy matrimonial union 
with Cornelia, only daughter of the late William Patterson, 
a distinguished citizen of New Jersey, and one of the 
Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. This 
excellent lady, and nine children of the marriage, survive 
the husband and father. Delicacy would forbid my saying 
more of the living than concerns the just memory of the 
dead. These children are all of an age to have developed 
already their individual characters ; and to those who, like 



Tlie Life atid Services of 

myself, believe that the characters of children, as a general 
thing, are just what they are educated to be at the domestic 
board, they afford the most satisfactory and gratifying proof 
that the example, instruction and influence of the parents 
have been worthy of all approbation. 

In 1807 the subject of our notice was elected to the As- 
sembl)', and with him, as a colleague, his early and tried 
friend, Abraham Van Vechten. They were elected and 
served together in the Assembly for three successive years. 

In 1810 he was called to a new and distinguished service. 
In March of that year a Commission was instituted by the 
Legislature for exploring a route for a Western Canal ; and 
then was laid the foundation of that great system of Inter- 
nal Improvements by which New York has so much signal- 
ized herself. Seven persons composed the Commission — 
though all, I think, did not act. Mr. Van Rensselaer's 
was the second name ; the first was that of Governeur 
Morris ; Mr. Clinton was one of the number. In the sum- 
mer of this year, these gentlemen, accompanied by a sur- 
veyor, personally inspected and explored the route of a 
Canal from the Hudson to Erie. They travelled for the 
most part on horseback ; not always without serious dififi- 
culty and much deprivation, from the uncultivated state of 
the country ; sometimes they made the Canopy their cov- 
ering and shelter for the night. They made their Report 
in February, 181 1. Mr. Van RENSSELAER was in the As- 
sembly when the project of this Commission was first agi- 
tated, and, startling as the idea was to most men at that 
day, he entered warmly and heartily into the measure, and 
contributed materially to its success by his exertions and 
influence. From the earliest period, he was the unwavering 
and efificient friend of the Erie Canal. 
314 



Stephen I \iu Roissclacr. 

The favorable Report made by the Commissioners on 
this occasion, drawn by Mr. Morris, with consummate abil- 
ity, and yet not without great defects, gave an impulse to 
the Canal project which it never wholly lost, though it 
shortly after suffered interruption by the intervention of the 
war. In April, 1811, the Legislature again acted on the 
project, by raising a Commission to consider " of all matters 
relating to inland navigation." Mr. Van Rensselaer was 
still one of the Commissioners. It was proposed by this 
Commission to enlist Congress, and as far as possible the 
States individually, to contribute their aid and support to 
the work — a scheme which, most happily, completely failed. 
In March, 1812, the Commissioners reported, and appealed 
strongly and eloquently to the pride of New York, to con- 
struct the Canal, from her own resources, and on her own 
account. The appeal was so far effectual, that the Legis- 
lature, in June, authorized them to borrow five millions of 
dollars, on the credit of the State, for the prosecution of the 
enterprise. The war occurring just then, the project slept 
for nearly four years. 

The War with Great Britain was declared in June, 1812. 
This occurrence brought with it the great crisis in the public 
life of our worthy and distinguished fellow-citizen. The 
country was without any adequate preparation for the con- 
flict ; a state of things which, from the necessity of our 
political condition and the frame of our institutions, must 
always exist, I apprehend, whenever, and as often as we 
may be driven to make our appeal to arms. Such, at any 
rate, was the case now. Gen. Dearborn had been assigned 
to the command of the Northern frontier, with some undi- 
gested designs upon Canada. He established his Head 
Quarters at Greenbush, as being on the open and natural 

315 



The Life and Services of 

military route to the enemy's territory, by way of Lake 
Champlain. But there was a great deficiency of troops for 
any offensive operations. A regular army, of much magni- 
tude, is not to be recruited and disciplined for service, in 
such a country as ours, without time. And hence the 
necessity in all such cases of a resort to the Militia. The 
first reliance for defence, at least, if not for conquest, must 
be upon citizen soldiers. A requisition was made on Gov. 
Tompkins, to order into immediate service a considerable 
body of New York Militia. The patriot Governor promptly 
obeyed the requisition, and selected Major-General STEPHEN 
Van Rensselaer for the Command. 

The public relations between these two individuals were 
peculiar, and deserve to be stated. They were already re- 
garded as rival candidates for the Chief Magistracy of the 
State at the next Spring's election — the friends of the Gen- 
eral having already named him for that office in their own 
circles. The lines of party, too, were now very distinctly 
drawn, and it was the war that was made to divide them. 
The federalists were charged by their opponents, not only 
with being hostile to the war as having been both prema- 
ture and unnecessarj', but also with dispositions and designs 
averse to its vigorous or successful prosecution. Gen. V.\n 
Rensselaer was a federalist, and about to become the 
candidate of the federal party for the ofifice of Governor, 
and to him, therefore, without any express declaration to 
the contrary, might, perhaps, with an equal show of justice, 
be attributed the same unpatriotic and odious sentiments 
which were imputed to the great body of his friends. 
Without any desire, or attempt, to penetrate the motives 
which led to the selection of the General for command 

under such circumstances, and admitting that they might 
316 



Stephen Va7i Rensselaer. 

have been good and even generous, it is easy to see that, 
personally, the General was placed in a position of extreme 
embarrassment and hazard, and that results of great political 
importance might flow from any determination he might 
make. If he should decline the command, the proof of a 
culpable defection, against both him and his party, would 
be complete. On the other hand, considering his own inex- 
perience in the trade and business of war, the impracticable 
materials he had to deal with, and the very extraordinary 
extent of exposed and defenceless territory committed to 
his immediate military care and keeping— being no less than 
the entire " Northern and Western frontiers of the State 
between St. Regis and Pennsylvania" *— considering these 
things, and considering, too, how often misfortune alone, in 
warlike operations, though accompanied with unexception- 
able conduct, brings with it the most thorough disgrace, we 
can not help seeing that his acceptance of this command 
must subject him, personally, to a fiery ordeal, from which 
he might escape unharmed, and possibly with a burnished 
and brighter fame, but where the chances were fearfully 
prevalent that he would be utterly consumed. 

But the noble-minded man did not for an instant hesitate, 
when the question was between a probable sacrifice of him- 
self, and a possible service of great value rendered to his 
country within the line of his admitted duty. Whatever 
might be the views of other federalists, his own were sound 
and thoroughly patriotic. It was his country that called 
him to the field, and that was a voice which he could never 
disobey. Nor was he a loiterer, or a laggard. In an incred- 
ibly short time, after receiving the order, he had formed, 
with excellent and ready judgment, his military family, 

* General Orders of the Commander-in-Chief— July 13, 1812. 

317 



TJic Life and Services of 

thrown off the citizen and put on the soldier, and having 
taken hasty leave of the domestic circle at the Manor 
House — from which he parted under circumstances of the 
most delicate and tender interest — he took up his line of 
march for the Frontier. In ten days only from the date of 
his orders, we find him at Ogdensburgh, having visited and 
inspected the post at Sackett's Harbor, on his way. On 
the 13th of August, he was in the camp at Lewiston — just 
one month from the date of the call that had been made 
upon him ; and just two months from that day — on the 
13th of October — in one of the most gallant and brilliant 
affairs of the whole war, he carried his victorious arms into 
the enemy's territory, and planted the American flag tri- 
umphantly on the Heights of Oueenstown. Unhappily, it 
was a triumph of brief duration. He gained a complete 
and glorious victory ; sufficient, if maintained, as it might 
have been, to have secured the Peninsula of the Upper 
Province of Canada for the winter, as a conquest to the 
American arms ; but a victory lost as soon as won, by the 
shameful cowardice and defection of his troops. 

I can not, in this place, enter into a history of this cam- 
paign, or of the brilliant, but finally disastrous affair with 
which it closed. The abundant materials are already before 
his countrymen, from which their judgment, and that of 
posterity, will be made up. There, I think, with perfect 
security, may his friends rest his claims as a military com- 
mander. His merits in this respect will brighten, as the 
current of time runs on, and wears away the error, the envy 
and the prejudice of the day. It is the soldier's hard task 
to conquer difficulties, as well as enemies. He did it. It 
would not be easy to find another instance in which an 
army has been gathered — created I may say — and formed 
3i8 



Stephen Van Rensse/aer. 

into a well-trained and well-disciplined corps, fit for active 
and efficient service, in so brief a space of time, with such 
wretched materials, under such adverse and discouraging 
circumstances, and where there was such an utter destitu- 
tion of appropriate and necessary means. The plan, too, 
which he projected, for bringing the brief campaign to a 
brilliant close, the moment that he found himself possessed 
of an army — by which he proposed to conquer and possess 
himself of an extensive border territory of the enemy; cut 
ofT the forces of the enemy in the upper country, just flushed 
with victory, from all communication with the lower coun- 
try ; wipe out the disgrace with which the American arms 
had been already tarnished in that quarter ; procure winter 
lodgings for his soldiers in the comfortable dwellings of a 
British town, easily and safely accessible with all kinds of 
supplies ; and be ready, in the Spring, to begin a new cam- 
paign, with superior and eminent advantages already se- 
cured — a plan perfectly practicable, with reliable troops — 
not only justifiable at the time he formed it, but positively 
justified by everything that subsequently transpired — this 
plan must forever commend itself to the approval and ad- 
miration of his countrymen, as having been formed with the 
discretion, the judgment, and the skill of a master in the 
trade of war. I allude, here, to his enterprise originally 
planned, by which Fort George would have been stormed 
by the regular troops, while he should have carried the 
Heights, and by which, at one blow, the conquest of the 
Peninsula would have been complete — an enterprise which 
certainly failed only for want of co-operation, where co-oper- 
ation was due by every consideration of patriotism and 
honor. 

In regard to the enterprise, which he actually attempted, 

319 



TJic Life and Services of 

and which formed only a part of the original design, there 
is little hazard, at this time of day, in saying, that it was 
perfectly feasible, well devised, and skillfully executed. It 
was, moreover, as an enterprise, completely successful. With 
a mere handful of men, the Heights were carried early in 
the morning, under the direction of his Aid, the brave Col. 
Solomon Van Rensselaer; and they remained in his posses- 
sion till late in the afternoon of that day. The position was 
one that was easily defensible, and he had within trumpet- 
call men enough, twice or thrice over, to have maintained 
it, and put at defiance any force with which the enemy 
might or could have assailed him. And yet, after all this, 
he must see his victory turned into defeat and his triumph 
into disaster, by the shameful refusal of his yeoman soldier>% 
under the plea of constitutional scruples, to march into the 
safe camp that had already been won for them on the other 
side of the lines ! 

The official account of this affair, furnished by the Com- 
manding General the next day after its occurrence, was 
strongly characteristic of the man. It was a simple and un- 
varnished relation of facts and events ; the truth was plainly 
told ; but no complaint was made, no reproaches were ut- 
tered. His own duty had been done, and fearlessly and 
faithfully done ; and with perfect equanimity and confi- 
dence he submitted himself to the judgment of his Country. 
He expressed regrets on her account, but he intimated none 
whatever on his own. 

In the sequel of this severe and sanguinary conflict, the 
General found occasion for the exercise of that .sympathiz- 
ing and generous kindness by wliich he was so much distin- 
guished ; and he seems to have met in the British General 
Sheaffe a correspondent temper. On one side, Gen. Brock 
320 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

had fallen ; on the other, Col. Van Rensselaer was desper- 
ately wounded ; and there were other brave spirits on both 
sides, who had shared the fate of one or the other of these. 
A cessation of all hostile demonstrations was agreed upon. 
For six days the throat of brazen war was closed, while, 
with the tender of mutual services, the parties on either side 
proceeded to discharge the offices of humanity due to the 
living, and pay to the dead the appropriate tribute and 
ceremonies of respect. Gen. Sheaffe offered everything his 
camp could afford to promote the comfort of the wounded 
Col. Van Rensselaer. Gen. Van RENSSELAER informed his 
antagonist that he should order a salute to be fired at his 
camp, and also at Fort Niagara, on the occasion of the 
funeral solemnities of the brave and lamented Brock. " I 
feel too strongly," said the stern but afflicted Gen. Sheaffe, 
" the generous tribute which you propose to pay to my de- 
parted friend and chief, to be able to express the sense I 
entertain of it. Noble-minded as he was, so would he have 
done himself." 

With the campaign just referred to, closed the services of 
Gen. Van Rensselaer in the field. The next Spring, 1813, 
the Gubernatorial election was to come on, when the contest 
for power in the State between him and Gov. Tompkins, or 
rather between their respective parties, was to be decided. 
The General's friends shewed that, in his brief military 
career, he had lost none of the high consideration and con- 
fidence with which they had been used to regard him, by 
placing him promptly, and with great unanimity, in open 
nomination as their candidate for the Chair of State ; and 
when the time came, they gave him a hearty support. But 
his party was found to be, as it had long been, in a minority. 
He was defeated, but with a majority against him of only 

321 



The Life and Se7-vices of 

3,600, out of eighty-three thousand votes which had been 
cast in the canvass. 

With no disquieting ambition for political distinction, and 
a candidate for high ofifice at any time, only by a reluctant 
submission to the will and judgment of his friends. Gen. 
Van Rensselaer was not a man to feel any regrets on his 
own account for defeat at an election canvass. In his own 
affairs, in his own family, and in the secret opportunities 
which he was always seeking for the practice of benevolence, 
he had resources enough for the agreeable and useful occu- 
pation of all his time. 

During all the period of the war, it should be remembered 
that the Commission which had been instituted for the pro- 
motion of Internal Improvement, by a great Canal, and of 
which he was a member, continued in e.xistence. The war 
was no sooner ended than measures were taken to revi\e 
the subject, and the interest which had been felt in it. A 
Memorial on the subject, of great ability, drawn by Mr. 
Clinton, was presented to the Legislature of 18 16, and in 
March of the same year, the Commissioners, with Mr. Van 
Rensselaer at their head and acting as Chairman, pre- 
sented their Report, setting forth the difficulties which had 
been interposed to prevent the execution of the trusts con- 
fided to them four years before, and urging the Legislature 
to renew the authority, to adoj^t immediate measures for 
the prosecution of the enterprise. In April, 18 16, the law 
was passed by the Legislature, which authorized and directed 
this great work to be entered upon ; and the management 
and execution of it were committed to a Board of Canal 
Commissioners, of whom — as usual — Gen. V.\N Rensse- 
laer was one. From that period down to his death, he 
was a member of that body, and he was the President of the 



SfcpJicn ]'an Rensselaer. 

Board for nearly fifteen years — from April, 1824, when the 
name of his friend, the great Clinton, was struck from the 
roll of Commissioners. In the Spring of 1816, he was again, 
and for the last time, elected to the Assembly of the State ; 
and his presence and influence in that body in the Session 
of 1817, were especially useful as affecting those immense 
interests — as yet but little understood, much abused and 
contemned, and most violently opposed — which belonged 
to the Canals, and the system of Internal Improvements, 
then in the extremest weakness of their infancy. 

I shall have occasion directly to advert more particularly 
to the important services rendered by Gen. V.\N RENSSE- 
LAER to the cause of Learning and Education ; and I will 
simply refer, therefore, in this place, as being in the proper 
order of time, to the official connection which he had with 
our State system of Public Instruction. In March, 1819, 
he was elected by the Legislature a Regent of the State 
University, and at the time of his death he was the Chan- 
cellor, having been elevated to that station, on the decease 
of the late venerable Simeon De Witt, in 1835. 

In 1821 the present Constitution of this State was formed. 
In the progress of time, since the old Constitution was 
framed, ideas were found to have advanced also. Changes 
were deemed necessary', as well to meet a condition of 
things in some respects new, as to satisfy the demands of a 
generation which thought itself — and should have been, if 
it was not — wiser than that which had preceded it. But 
wherever the spirit of reform is abroad and active, and spec- 
ulations and theories in matters of government are broached 
freely, and Councils are to be held with a view to giving 
body and effect to the conceptions of ardent minds, it is not 
unimportant to secure the presence and assistance of a few 

3^3 



TIic Life and Services of 

men of conservative tempers and liabits, in order to make 
sure, if possible, that the deep foundations of things shall 
not be wholly broken up, nor the moral elements of society 
utterly dissipated and destroyed. In the Convention of 
1 82 1, a few spirits of this sort were gathered, and of these, 
by no means the least valuable among them, was STEPHEN 
Van Rensselaer. He brought with him there his char- 
acter — one of uncommon purity ; his experience — not now 
inconsiderable ; his steadfastness of principle ; his notions 
of men and things — descended from old schools, but fash- 
ioned and modernized in the new ; his excellent strong 
sense, and his judgment of almost intuitive accuracy and 
soundness ; and with such qualifications, without being ac- 
customed either to write much or debate much, it would be 
hard to say if there was another member of the Convention, 
among all the great and good names that belonged to it, 
who was more valuable, or more indispensable than himself, 
if the business of that body was to be brought to a safe and 
happy conclusion. 

In considering the doings of that Con\-ention, it is evi- 
dent that nothing, in all the various business undertaken 
by it, was equal in magnitude of interest to the single ques- 
tion in regard to the Right of Suffrage. Here the firm 
foundations both of Government and of Freedom were to 
be laid ; while the danger was that, at this very point, if not 
sufficientl)' guarded, a flood might be let in to sweep both 
Government and Freedom away in ruins. Mr. V.\n RENS- 
SELAER was one of the Committee appointed to consider 
and report on this momentous subject. He dissented from 
the Report made to the Convention by a majority of the 
Committee, and he submitted to the Convention a Proposi- 
tion of his own, as a substitute for the Report, which he 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

accompanied with some remarks, briefly explanator>' of his 
views and apprehensions on this great question. 

It must be remembered, that up to this period, none but 
freeholders had been allowed to vote for the higher officers 
of government. Not only had a property qualification been 
adopted, but retaining the old notions, evidently of feudal 
origin, respecting the superior value and sacredness of 
landed possessions, the former Constitution of the State 
had thrown the higher and most important branches of the 
government exclusively into the hands of the landed inter- 
est. Mr. Van Rensselaer was the largest landed propri- 
etor in the State, and he had inherited his interest in the 
soil originally from a feudal source, and held it by a feudal 
title : but he was an enlightened and patriotic citizen of a 
free State, and, as such, he was ready to take his chance 
with others under the protection of a government essentially 
popular and free. He had no difficulty whatever in agree- 
ing to the propriety of at once abolishing the old distinc- 
tions between landed and personal property as affecting the 
higher rights of citizenship, and making the qualification of 
electors for all the officers of government equal and uniform. 
And he was equally ready to abandon the notion of a prop- 
erty qualification of any sort for electors. He agreed per- 
fectly to the principle— which was the one professedly 
adopted by his colleagues of the Committee— that those 
who really contribute to the support and the defence of the 
government, should make the government. So far he was 
willing and anxious to go ; but here he would stop. He 
insisted upon guarding the principle strictly, by limiting the 
privilege to such as should seem to have something of the 
character of fixedness and stability in their residence, and 
their attachment to the State, and he was entirely unwilling 

325 



The Life and Services of 

to extend this privilege — to use his own expression — to " a 
wandering population, men who are nowhere to be found 
when the enemy or the tax gatherer comes." Believing 
that, in pushing a theory into details, the Committee would 
violate the maxims of a sound and practical policy, by some 
of their propositions, he felt himself bound to dissent from 
the conclusions of their Report. He conducted his opposi- 
tion, before the Convention, as he had done in Committee, 
in his own direct and manly way; and presenting a distinct 
Amendment of his own, he exerted himself to induce the 
Convention to place the Right of Suffrage on a ground, at 
once, according to his opinions, of great liberality and of 
perfect safety. But his opinions were not the opinions of 
the majority of the Convention, and his efforts, and the 
efforts of those with whom he was more immediately asso- 
ciated, though not without their strong and salutary influ- 
ence, were in the main unsuccessful. After a long and 
laborious Session, the new Constitution was adopted by the 
Convention. There had been other subjects of disagree- 
ment, of great magnitude and importance, among the mem- 
bers ; and Mr. Van Ren.sselaek, with twenty-two others, 
declined to give their assent and sanction to the Instrument 
by putting their names to it. 

In i8ig, the Legislature of this State was induced, 
through the exertions of a number of disinterested and patri- 
otic gentlemen, among whom was Mr. Van Ren.sselaek, 
to pass an Act for the encouragement and improvement of 
Agriculture. A sum of money was appropriated, to be 
divided rateably among the several Counties of the State ; 
County Societies were to be formed with the proper officers ; 
and the Presidents of these Societies, or Delegates instead 

of the Presidents from such of them as should choose to 
326 



StcpJicn J 'an Rensselaer. 

elect them, were to form a Central Board of Agriculture. 
Such was the outline of the proposed organization. In 
January, 1820, the Presidents, or Delegates, from twenty-six 
County Societies, already organized, met at the Capitol in 
Albany, and elected STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER President 
of the Board. The life of this Board of Agriculture was 
made a very brief one by law, and when the legal limit was 
out, it was suffered to expire. It lasted long enough, how- 
ever, to demonstrate the inappreciable value of legislative 
aid and encouragement to the Agricultural interest ; and it 
raised to itself an enduring and noble monument, by the 
publication of three very valuable volumes of Transactions 
and Memoires. 

Each of the first two volumes of the Board contains, 
amongst other things, a very curious and remarkable Paper. 
These Papers present a complete view of the Geological 
and Agricultural features of the Counties of Albany and 
Rensselaer, as gathered from accurate and minute surveys, 
and from actual and extensive analyses. They are the Re- 
ports of distinguished scientific gentlemen, employed, ex- 
clusively at the expense of the President of the Board of 
Agriculture, to make the examinations and surveys, the re- 
sults of which are here embodied. It was believed then, 
and it is believed now, that these were the first attempts 
made in this country-, " to collect and arrange Geological 
facts, with a direct view to the improvement of Agriculture." 
The time, perhaps, has not even yet come, when the incal- 
culable advantages of such a labor are generally appre- 
ciated ; but I express only my humble and sober convic- 
tion, when I say, that in the example of these attempts, 
and their success — followed up as they will be in time, to 
swell the profits and increase the business and the benefits 

327 



TIic Life and Services of 

of Agriculture, and withal to connect this employment with 
better knowledge, and a competent degree of scientific at- 
tainment, in the cultivators of the soil — he has rendered a 
higher service to his country, than if he had been the man 
to win twenty hard-fought battles for her in a just and 
necessary war. 

The laws for the encouragement of Agriculture expired, 
as I have said, by their own limitation ; and all attempts to 
revive them from that day to this — strange that it should 
be so — have proved utterly unavailing. But Mr. Van 
Rensselaer, though without any convenient Society, or 
Board of Agriculture, under cover of whose name he might 
pursue his plans for the benefit of the State, had only just 
now entered on a series of extraordinary efforts and experi- 
ments for the advancement of science, of education, and 
the public prosperity, which he afterwards prosecuted with 
equal perseverance and effect. After the surveys of the 
counties of Albany and Rensselaer had been completed, 
under his direction, presenting, besides a view of their 
Geological formations, a thorough analysis of their soils, in 
all their principal varieties — on a plan new at the time, and 
since extensively approved and employed — and accom- 
panied, particularly in the survey of Rensselaer county, 
with a view of the proper Methods of Culture adapted to 
the xarious soils; and after he had caused the Surveys to be 
published, at his own cost, in a separate and convenient 
form, for extensive and gratuitous distribution ; he next 
turned his attention to a more extended scientific survey, to 
be carried through the entire length of the State on the line 
of the Erie Canal. This was commenced and prosecuted, 
under his orders, in the fall of 1822, by Professor Amos 
Eaton, aided by two competent Assistants. The next year, 
328 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

by the direction of his Patron, the work was resumed, and 
the survey greatly extended. The truth seems to be, that, 
akhough the surveys of Albany and Rensselaer Counties 
were made, at the time, with an avowed and more imme- 
diate reference to the interests of Agriculture, yet. they 
were not, even then, unconnected with a plan which had 
been formed for offering a large and generous contribution 
to the science of Geology. This plan embraced a particular 
examination of the strata and formation of American rocks, 
by the survey of a transverse section, running across the 
great primitive ranges of New England, and the transition 
and secondary ranges of Eastern and Western New York. 
With the experience obtained in the local examinations 
already referred to, and a partial review of the Erie Canal 
line. Professor Eaton completed, in 1S23, his grand Survey. 
His section extended from Boston to Lake Erie, a distance 
of about five hundred and fifty miles, stretching across nine 
degrees of longitude, and embracing a belt about fifty miles 
wide. At the same time. Prof. Hitchcock was employed to 
make a similar survey of a section across New England, a 
few miles North of that taken by Prof. Eaton. In 1824, a 
Publication was made, containing the results of these sur- 
veys, with maps exhibiting a profile view of the rocks in 
each of the sections. It is not, I believe, to be doubted, 
that this work presents a connected view of mineral masses, 
with their nature and order, taken from actual inspection 
and survey, of greater extent than had ever before been 
offered to Geology. Discoveries were made, and a mass of 
facts was gathered, which could not fail, as they did not, to 
arouse and quicken enquiry and investigation, and con- 
tribute essentially and largely to advance Geological Sci- 
ence. Attention was strongly attracted, both in this country 

3=0 



The Life and Services of 

and in Europe, to the vcr}' creditable and faithful labors of 
Prof. Eaton, prosecuted under the direction of his munificent 
Patron ; and this example it was, unquestionably, which has 
led, at last, to the adoption in several of the States, and 
this among the number, of plans for exploring their terri- 
tories at the public expense, in search of scientific facts, and 
of the mineral riches, and other substances of economical 
value, to be found upon or beneath the surface of their re- 
spective portions of the earth. 

But the crowning effort of this good man's life — whom 
we have now followed on, in his career, to his three score 
years — remains to be noticed. It was an effort in behalf of 
the dearest interest of his country, and of mankind ; it was 
an effort to advance the cause of Education, and human 
improvement. He had satisfied himself that there were 
great defects in the ordinary and prevalent systems of In- 
struction : at any rate he saw that some of the most useful 
subjects of human knowledge were scarcely communicated 
at all. in quarters where they seemed most needed for the 
practical purposes of life; and he determined that the 
proper remedy, if possible, should be applied. 

His first movement was to employ Prof. Eaton, with a 
competent number of Assistants, to traverse the State, on 
or near the route of the Erie Canal, with sufficient ap- 
paratus, specimens and the like, and deliver, in all the prin- 
cipal villages and towns where an audience of business 
men, or others, could be gathered, familiar Lectures, accom- 
panied with experiments and illustrations, on Chemistry, 
Natural Philosophy, and some or all of tlie branches of 
Natural History. This scientific and educational progress 
through the State was made in the summer of 1824, at the 
Patron's cost ; inconsiderable contributions only having 
33" 



Stephen J \xti Rensselaer. 

been made' in the villages where Lectures were delivered. 
The experiment was entirely successful ; a prodigious inter- 
est in behalf of natural science had been excited ; and the 
Patron was encouraged to prosecute a plan of operations 
which he had meditated for a considerable time. 

He had long been accustomed to send the schoolmaster 
abroad among the poorer portions of his numerous tenantry' ; 
and he had been led to observe, as the result of these ex- 
periments — having been obliged to employ persons, for this 
service, of very slender qualifications, for want of better — 
that the improvement of the masters, as a general thing, 
was much more considerable than that of their pupils. It 
was from this hint, that he was led to consider, and finally 
to digest, a plan for a scliool, the leading feature of which 
should be, that the learner should himself take the place, 
and perform the regular duties, of teacher or instructor, in 
all the business and exercises of the school. Securing, in 
this way, as he believed he should, the most ready and thor- 
ough improvement of the students, he proposed that the 
chief business of the School should be to furnish instruction 
" in the application of Science to the common purposes of 
life." He declared one of his principal objects to be " to 
qualify teachers for instructing the sons and daughters of 
Mechanics, in the application of Experimental Chemistry, 
Philosophy, and Natural Histor).', to Agriculture, Domestic 
Economy, and the Arts and Manufactures." 

On the 5th of November, 1824, having provided a suita- 
ble building at Troy, and employed an Agent to procure 
the necessarj' Apparatus and Library, he enclosed to the 
Rev. Dr. Blatchford a set of Orders for the government of 
the School, and requested him to proceed to its organiza- 
tion, and act himself as President of a Board of Trustees, 

,131 



Tlic Life and Services of 

whom he named. He named, at the same time, a Senior 
and a Junior Professor, wliom he endowed with hberal 
salaries. The Senior Professor was Mr. Eaton, who had 
already been engaged to take the charge of instruction in 
the Institution. The School was soon after organized, and 
put into successful operation. In 1826, it was incorporated, 
and is now known as the Rensselaer Institute. Its success, 
under the care of the veteran Eaton, has been complete — 
but with a very heavy and continued outlay on the part of 
its generous Patron. Instruction in the Sciences is wholly 
experimental and demonstrative, and is always, therefore, 
practical and thorough. 

In 1828, the Patron, after having, at his own cost, estab- 
lished and liberally endowed this School, and while he was, 
then as since, bearing from his own purse, not less than one 
half of its current expenses, caused an invitation to be 
given to each County in the State, to furnish a student, se- 
lected by the Clerk of the County, for gratuitous instruction 
at the Institute.* The invitation was accepted in nearly 
all the Counties, and that large number of persons, within 
less than three years, was sent forth from the Institute, with 
a complete practical education, obtained without the cost of 
a dollar to them for tuition. Other instances of instruction 
there, wholly gratuitous, have not been wanting. 

The Patron first proposed to himself to sustain this School, 
as an experiment, for three years, with a reasonable expecta- 
tion certainly, that at the end of that time, if successful at 
all, public attention would be sufficiently attracted towards 



* The Patron, however, imposed on these Students a condition — 
the benefits of which would of course go to the Community — that 
they should instruct in their own Counties for one year, on the ex- 
perimental and demonstrative method. 

332 



Stephen J^an Rensselaer. 

this novel method, to enable him to hand it over to the 
community, with a confident reliance on the patronage of 
the public to support and perpetuate it. But all observa- 
tion shews that no improvements are so slow in gaining 
adoption and support at the hands of the community as 
improvements in the methods of Education. In this case, 
almost of course, while the Patron saw at the end of three 
years, that the advantages secured by his methods and 
course of instruction were great, beyond all his original ex- 
pectations, he yet saw that the public must continue to 
enjoy them, if at all, for years to come, chiefly at his cost. 
He submitted to the sacrifice, and thus has this invaluable 
institution been continued for upwards of fourteen years. 

The course of instruction in this Institution has been 
considerably enlarged since its organization, by the direc- 
tion of the Patron. It may be described as a School for 
thorough and complete instruction in the circle of the nat- 
ural Sciences, applicable, in any way, to the economy or the 
business of life, in all its civil departments — not, however, 
including those usually denominated professional. The 
peculiarity in the mode of instruction, originally introduced, 
has been adhered to ; and the distinguishing and eminent 
advantage gained by this peculiarity of method has been, 
not only that the students themselves have been thoroughly 
taught, and are ready, at all times, professionally or other- 
wise, to make a practical and highly useful application of 
their knowledge, for their own benefit or the benefit of 
others, but that, whether such is their occupation and busi- 
ness, or not, they go out to the world as an army of Teach- 
ers, so familiar with the various subjects of their knowledge, 
and so fitted and accustomed, from long habit, to impart it, 
that they become involuntarily the schoolmasters and in- 

333 



The Life and Services of 

structors of every circle into which they enter. They are 
Hghts and luminaries to the prevalent darkness that may 
surround them, gentle and mild, but radiant and steady, in 
whatever orbit they may chance to move. 

It is impossible to compute, or perhaps to give any ra- 
tional conjecture, about the amount of good which has al- 
ready been effected through this munificent and skillfully- 
devised charity — much more impossible is it to compass, in 
thought, the benefits which coming generations must reap 
from that system and plan of Education, of which the ex- 
ample was first set, and the eminent utility satisfactorily 
tested, in the Rensselaer Institute. Schools have been set 
up on the Rensselaer method, in various and distant parts 
of our country ; and it has been stated to me as a fact, from 
calculations actually made, that the Institute has itself fur- 
nished to the community, more experimental Teachers and 
Professors, State Geologists, Principal and Assistant En- 
gineers on Public Works, and practical Chemists and Nat- 
uralists, than have been furnished, in the same time, by all 
the Colleges in the Union. If the half of this statement be 
true, the result, in this single particular, is a proud one for 
the memory of the Patron, through whose almost unknown 
munificence it has been effected. 

But I pass to one or two other particulars, which must be 
noticed, before I close the history of the personal career of 
the subject of this Memoir. He was connected with the 
institution of Masonry, having been initiated as a Mason in 
1786, when he was twenty-two. In this As.sociation, as else- 
where, he was very early placed in official station. He first 
held the post of Junior Warden, as I find it called; then of 
Senior Warden ; and then of Master. In 1793, he declined 
any further election in the Master's Lodge. In 1825, an 
334 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

imposing Masonic ceremony was performed in this city, 
when he was installed in the office of Grand Master, the 
highest ofifice in Masonry. The ceremony of installation 
was performed by Gov. Clinton, who was his predecessor in 
the same high office. Both the Past and the Elect Grand 
Master delivered Addresses ; that of the former of great 
length, and full of power, beauty and brilliancy ; that of the 
latter, in reph', was shorter, full of simplicity, mingled with 
sterling good sense, and characterized by his usual kindness, 
benevolence and fraternal affection. In 1826, he was re- 
elected to the same office; but he declined any further 
official connection with Masonry the next j-ear. It is sup- 
posed that whatever there was, or is, in Masonry, worth 
knowing, he knew ; and that he had been initiated into 
some mysteries connected with it, which, since the death of 
Baron Steuben, by whom they were communicated, were 
known to a \'&xy few others only, in this countr}'. It is 
well known, that no abuses committed in the name of this 
Fraternity, ever received the least sanction from him ; and 
certainly no man in our community thought, or spoke, with 
more unaffected abhorrence of the outrage, which, in 1826, 
was offered by Masons to an American citizen in the West- 
ern part of this State, than he did. He regarded this In- 
stitution as formed for practical and benevolent uses, and 
whatever connection he had with it, "down to the last, was 
continued principally, as a convenient means of practising 
those secret acts of charity and kindness in which he so 
much delighted. 

In December, 1823, Gen. Van Rensselaer took his seat, 
for the first time, in Congress, as a Representative from the 
City and County of Albany. He was continued in his 
place by re-election for three successive terms, and retired 



7 he Life and Services of 

on the fourth of March, 1829. During his whole Congres- 
sional service of six years, he held the station of Chairman 
of the Committee on Agriculture. In March, 1824, he 
made a valuable Report to the House, in answer to a Reso- 
lution of enquiry touching the effect of the Tariff Laws on 
the interests of Agriculture. In February, 1825, the im- 
posing ceremony of an election to the Presidency took 
place in the House of Representatives. His vote deter- 
mined that of the Delegation from this State in favor of 
Mr. Adams, and, as it resulted, produced the election of 
that gentleman on the first ballot. Gen. Van Rensselaer 
never mingled in the conflict of debate; but he was not, 
for that reason, the less valuable or influential member. 
His faithfulness, his integrity, his eminent honesty, his 
kindness of manner, his ready perception of the true and 
the right in all questions presented for the action of the 
House, and his freedom from the prejudices and trammels 
of party, gave him a standing and influence In the House, 
far beyond what ever belongs, in such a body, to the mere 
ability, however distinguished, to conduct a skillful argu- 
ment, or pronounce an eloquent harangue. The great 
moral sway which character alone, commanding general ad- 
miration and respect, bears in a deliberative Assembly, was 
never more conspicuous, than in the case of STEPHEN VAN 
Rensselaer in the Afnerican House of Representatives. 

Our review of this eminent man's life is drawing to a con- 
clusion : and it will occur no doubt to many, probably as 
strange, that as yet no distinct notice has been taken of 
certain particulars, by which he was more known and distin- 
guished in the popular estimation, than by any thing else — 
namely — first, his connection with various Societies, foreign 

and domestic, particularly with those whose objects were 
336 



Stephen I'aii Rensselaer. 

benevolent ; and, finally, his private charities. These have 
not been forgotten, but they can not be enumerated in this 
Discourse. I may mention, in general terms, that he was 
an honorary member of many and various learned Asso- 
ciations, at home and abroad ; some pursuing particular 
branches of science, of arts or learning, and others more 
comprehensive and general in their objects. He was the 
President of several local Societies designed for charitable 
or religious uses ; while of the great Institutions of the 
day, so general as to be designated American, and em- 
ployed to aggregate immense numbers, and combine their 
united strength for the prosecution of great Christian enter- 
prizes, there was scarcely one, perhaps not one, with which 
he was not, or had not been, connected by membership, 
and frequently by the highest, always by high ofificial sta- 
tion. 

In regard to his private charities, there are two difificulties 
in the way of any attempt to particularize them ; one is, 
that they were private, and they are, therefore, to a great 
extent unknown ; and the other is, that, so far as known, 
they are numberless. It would be tedious and dif^cult to 
enumerate the cases alone in which he gave by hundreds 
and by thousands. Two of our American Colleges re- 
ceived from him, in one subscription, five thousand dollars 
each. It is computed that he expended, through a single 
agent, in prosecuting scientific researches, and for the ad- 
vancement of his educational methods and plans, and for 
gratuitous instruction, not less than thirty thousand dollars. 
And, taking the cause of learning in its various branches, 
the support and spread of Christianity, and the plans of 
benevolence and mercy, as found, each of them, in the 
hands of voluntary Associations, and dependent on individ- 

337 



TJie Life and Services of 

ual munificence — taking these objects together, I suppose it 
can hardly be doubted that he was the largest contributor 
to them, of pecuniary means, during his life time, in the 
Union. In respect to his minor benevolencies, nobody can 
number or compute them. They flowed from him in 
streams which were perpetual — never dry, and never scanty. 
Tt was impossible they should fail, so long as objects could 
be found to call them forth — and these never fail. There is 
not, probably, a profession, and hardly a department 
of active life amongst us, in which some could not be 
found — few or many — who owe the advantages of their po- 
sition to him ; while it is nearly certain that he fed more 
that were hungry, warmed more that were cold, clothed 
more that were naked, covered more shelterless heads, dried 
up more bitter tears, and comforted more despairing hearts, 
than any other man living among us in his time. 

But I pass from these particulars, to the conclusion of 
this imperfect notice and tribute. The last year or two of 
the life of this eminent citizen was marked by disease and 
severe suffering. For several years, indeed, he had been 
subject to attacks which indicated that a cruel malady was 
fastening itself upon him, and that his sun was destined to 
set in a troubled sky. His disorder finally showed itself 
fully about eighteen months ago, and created, at the time, 
considerable alarm, lest its termination should be speedily 
fatal. During the whole of the winter before the last, he 
was regarded as scarcely ever free from danger. Considera- 
ble abatement took place in the Spring, and he was able to 
leave home, for a short time. When winter returned, he 
was again wholly confined to his house, and mucii to his 
own apartment, enduring more than can be told, with only 
brief intervals of relief, till the day of his departure came — 
338 



Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

when his candle went out, suddenly indeed, but not without 
circumstances of mitigation and mercy. As his faithful 
and honored friend and biograplier, I must not omit to 
record that he died, as he had lived, a Christian ; exhibiting 
a patience and resoluteness in his sufferings, and a calmness 
and fearlessness with the Angel of Death in his presence, 
which — however much others might have supposed there 
was of reliable stuff for such scenes in liis natural courage 
and firmness — he himself referred and attributed wholly to 
the efficacy and sufficiency of his Christian faith and his 
Christian principles. 

His own desire had been frequently expressed, that when 
the time came, his body should be borne to the common 
Tomb of his Fathers, with simple ceremonies only, and with 
an entire absence of ostentatious parade. This injunction 
was obeyed by his family, as far as the public, and public 
bodies, would consent it should be. It was arranged that 
the religious solemnities of his funeral should be celebrated 
at the North Dutch Church in this city — his own place of 
public worship — and in the presence of that fellowship of 
Christians belonging there, with which he had been con 
nected, as a member in Communion, for more than half a 
century^ From thence to the family vault, near his late 
residence, a procession was formed. The Body, in its sim- 
ple and unadorned Cofifin, was borne on men's shoulders — 
the bearers frequently relieving each other — the pall sup- 
ported by those who had known him long and loved him 
well. No hearse was permitted to receive the burden. The 
mourners followed ; after them, the Municipal Authorities 
of the City ; several public Societies ; the Chief Magistrate 
and other Executive Officers of the State ; and the Legislat- 
ure in order; and then came citizens and strangers, falling 

339 



The Life and Services of 

in by two and two, until the procession was extended to a 
most unusual and imposing length. Ail were on foot. No 
carriages were used. The Military were in citizen's dress. 
All badges of office had been laid aside. No plumes nodded ; 
no helmets glistened; no music murmured; solemn, slow, 
and silent the procession moved on, through thick and 
thronging, but orderly and respectful ranks, crowding the 
streets, and lining the casements of every dwelling on either 
side. And thus were the remains of the good man carried, 
and deposited in their resting-place ; and thus were they 
attended. None ever had a more simple funeral ; none 
were ever followed by a larger train of sincere and sorrowing 
mourners. 

Here, then, we part with him. The man dies, but his 
memory and virtues live. I shall not attempt to give a 
separate and extended sketch of his character. It is found 
in the sentiments, the acts, and the practices of his life, as 
already detailed. His mind was of that order which com- 
bines quickly, and reaches conclusions so readily, and with 
such intuitive accuracy, that laborious investigation, as the 
need of it is not soon felt, finally becomes irksome, and is 
seldom or never used. It reposes on itself with a confidence 
which experience only confirms, while the processes by 
which it comes to results, are seldom stated to itself, and 
never to others. His heart was not unlike his mind in its 
impulsive and intuitive habits ; it made him a man of mercy 
and of charity, without the necessity of any elaborate disci- 
pline, or any long training. It was his nature to be kind 
and humane. He was tenderly attached to his family, where 
liis affections, without making an uncommon case of it, 
might have rested and terminated ; yet he saw a friend or a 
brother in every worthy man he met. His benevolence was 



Stephen Vail Renssc/acr. 

of that large kind which loves an expansive range, and is 
offended at limitations and restraints. And his humanity 
was not satisfied with stopping short of cruelty, or with re- 
lieving misery, but was itself distressed, if, by the most un- 
conscious act, pain were inflicted on another, or his sensibil- 
ity wounded. He had the tenderness of a very woman, laid 
side by side in his temperament with a manly courage, and 
an unconcernedness which made him, if occasion demanded, 
laugh and mock at fear or danger. There was that in him, 
too, which made his spirit always self-poised and conserva- 
tive. He was temperate in all things ; in his personal in- 
dulgences ; in his personal predilections or prejudices ; in 
his party attachments or aversions ; in his new opinions or 
feelings, whenever he acquired them ; in his love of the 
world ; and in his religious faith and practice. And, to 
sum up all, there was in him, with a reasonable facility for 
changing with the times, a steadfastness of character and 
purpose — but no unimpressibility — derived, perhaps, by in- 
heritance from his nation, but so mingled in him with other 
elements, as to belong essentially and individually to him- 
self. But I forbear. 

The best part of a good man's life is his example. Him 
we may meet no more ; but this we may meet at every turn. 
This is immortal, and can not die. It lives in memory ; 
lives in tradition ; lives in history. It is present with us, 
and will be present with those who come after us — to teach, 
to instruct, to influence, and to guide. It is a light which 
never goes out, and never grows dim. And, for my part, I 
know not what we, or the world, ought to thank God for 
devoutly, if not that a good man has lived, and, dying, has 
left us the legacy of his example and his virtues. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH." 



At the period when the settlement of the North American 
Colonies was begun, the Dutch were, by far, the most Com- 
mercial people in Europf,. The Republic of Holland boasted 
of twenty thousand vessels, and more than two hundred 
thousand mariners. A bloody war, waged for National In- 
dependence, through a long series of years, seemed to have 
had no other effect than to multiply their numbers, and turn 
rivers of wealth to flow into the lap of the Nation. Liberty, 
too, was a great gainer ; and Civilization marched forward 
by rapid strides, and with manly vigor, under the lead of 
Commerce. The City of Amsterdam took the lead of all 
others in the Netherlands. In population, in wealth, and in 
political power, she was pre-emment. The affairs of the 
Nation were conducted, and wars were prosecuted, expressly 
in a manner to favor and promote the operations of trade ; 
and much of the political authority, directly or indirectly, 
was in the hands of the Municipalities where the Merchants 
bore sway. 

In the first years of the Seventeenth Century, the Mer- 
chants of Holland, like those of every other country in Eu- 
rope, still worshipped with their regards turned towards the 
East. In 1602, the Dutch East India Company was estab- 
lished — one of those extraordinary organizations of the pe- 
riod, embracing half a world in its exclusive commercial 
grasp, and clothed, at the same time, with unlimited and 



* An Historical Sketch of the Colony and Manor of Rensselaervvyck, read 
before the Albany Institute, April 25, 1839, by Daniel D. Barnard. 

345 



Historical Sketch. 

independent powers for conquest and for government. It 
was while engaged in the service of this Company that Hud- 
son, after another unsuccessful attempt to find his way to 
Southern Asia, through the ice-bound Seas of the North, ran 
down the American Coast, and, finally, entered and explored 
our own noble River, which still bears his name. This was 
in 1609. The Dutch claimed no other territorial rights, in 
new countries, as the consequence of Discovery, than such as 
they might secure by actual possession, taken in reasonable 
time. For several successive years after the Discovery, the 
country on the Hudson was visited by the trading ships of 
various Merchants of Amsterdam. In 1614, the States Gen- 
eral passed an Edict, which excluded, for four years, from 
the trade on this River, all competition with those under 
whom the Discovery had been made, from such time as the 
latter might see fit to enter upon and monopolize it. It was 
under this Edict that an unincorporated Trading Company, 
made up, probably, in whole or in part, from Members of the 
East India Company, sent out a trading adventure, which 
found a position for itself, in the fall of that year, on the 
upper part of Castle Island, the first below this city, and 
known to us as Van Rensselaer's, or the Patroon's Island, 
and where a rude fortification was then erected.* 

This establishment was purely Commercial, looking almost 
solely to the trade in peltries, with so much of military power 
incorporated with it as might serve for protection, in its out- 
cast lodgment in the deep of a savage wilderness. Its pres- 
ence here, as the pioneer of Colonization, was fortunate and 
salutary. From the first, it conciliated the favor and friend- 
ship of the Mohawks, and with them the warlike and con- 
quering Confederacy of Indians, known as the Five Nations ; 
and, within three years, its managers succeeded in conclud- 
ing a solemn and formal Treaty of Friendship and Alliance 
with the Confederacy, which stood the parties concerned. 



* Mr. Bancroft, in his admirable History of the United States, insists 
that this trading settlement was not made until T615 ; and he claims, in his 
Notes, that this fact is proved by the Albany Records. I think he is mis- 
taken. The proof to which he refers is too indefinite and uncertain to con- 
trol the direct testimony in the case, i Banc. Hist., 272-3. 
346 



Historical Sketch. 

and their successors, for long years to come, in much better 
stead, than their fortification, " with two brass pieces, eleven 
stone guns, and a dozen soldiers," would have been likely to 
do under other circumstances. This Treaty was concluded 
at the Fort of the Traders, which was situated on the banks 
of the Norman's Kill, a short distance south of the position 
originally assumed, and from which they had been driven 
by the floods.* 

But as yet, it will be observed, there was no Dutch Colony 
here. There were only the Commercial Agents of a Trading 
Association. Not a family, or a female, had yet emigrated. f 
There had been no formal appropriation of any portion of 
the soil, except for present or temporary use ; no purchase 
of land had been made ; and the public Authorities at home 
had, as yet, advanced no claim to the Territory. But the 
way to Colonization was about to be opened. With objects 
on the part of the Government, having little to do, imme- 
diatel}', with the settlement and reclaiming of a new and 
savage world, a great National Society was instituted by the 
States General, under the name of the Dutch West India 
Company, which possessed the most extraordinary privi- 
leges, and was clothed with the most extraordinary powers. 
This was in 1621. It was invested with the exclusive right 
" to traffic and plant Colonies on the Coast of Africa, from 
the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope ; and on 
the Coast of America, from the Straits of Magellan to the 
remotest North." It was to be an armed Association from 
the start, and especially it was expected to set out with a 
powerful Marine. The enemies of the Republic were to be 
its enemies. And whenever it should go to war on its own 
account, as it had the prerogative of doing, its enemies were 
to be also the enemies of the Republic. The States General 
were to be its allies. With more than half a hemisphere of 
land and water for its operations, it was to carry its arms 
and its merchandise — to traffic and to conquer — wherever it 
might be found profitable and practicable to do so. Wher- 



* Vide Moulton's "Hist. N. Y.," Part ii., p. 346. 

f The first child of European parentage, born in New Netherland, had 
its birth in 1625. Moult., Part ii., p. 371. 

347 



Historical Sketch. 

ever its standard might be planted, there the absolute right 
of government in the Company attached, with only this con- 
dition, that everything must be done to the satisfaction of 
the high Authorities from which its power was derived. The 
central power of the Company was divided, for the more effi- 
cient exercise, among five Branches, established in the differ- 
ent cities of the Netherlands. Of these, that at Amsterdam 
was the chief, and had charge of the affairs of New Nether- 
land. The general supervision and government of the affairs 
of the Company, however, was lodged in a College, or Con- 
gress, of Nineteen Delegates. These Deputies, and the Man- 
agers of the Five Chambers, were styled the Lords Directors, 
and they wielded a commercial and political authority of the 
first magnitude. The home of their power was to be both 
on the water and on the land. They commenced their oper- 
ations in 1623, and at once they swept the Ocean with their 
fleets, and made their descent on the shores of two Conti- 
nents, wherever they could spoil or annoy an enemy, or secure 
profits to themselves. Spain, the ancient enemy and oppressor 
of their country, was made to feel the weight of the right arm 
of their power ; and Piracy, which, at this juncture, was well 
nigh having the common command of the Ocean, was met 
everywhere, and beaten into submission and good behavior. 

With objects like these to occupy the attention of the Di- 
rectors, it is not surprising that the Colonization of a new 
country — the planting of a Christian population in a heathen 
and wilderness land, with a view to making it, in time, the 
abode of civilization and refinement — should not at first have 
given them much concern. They did indeed prepare, at 
once, to take possession of the country on the North River ; 
for in the very first year of their full organization — in 1623 — 
they set up the ensigns of their authority here in two fortifi- 
cations. Fort New Amsterdam occupied a position near the 
confluence of the North and East Rivers ; and Fort Orange 
was planted near the head of navigation, on the alluvial 
ground now occupied by the business part of the City of 
Albany.* But even yet, and for some years after, these were 



* The site was that on which stands the building lately known as the 
Fort Orange Hotel— formerly the mansion of the late Simeon De Witt. 
34S 



Historical Skclch. 

the mere trading stations of the Company. Fort Orange 
was a walled and armed Custom House, into which was 
made to flow a commerce in peltries, drawn from a country 
extending to Quebec, and bounded thence by the course of 
the waters inland to Niagara and the Lake above it ; while 
New Amsterdam was the Head Quarters of the local govern- 
ment, vested in an Upper and an Under Merchant, or Com- 
missary,* and the place of rendezvous for the ships and 
coasters of the Company. 

I have entered into this little detail of history, in order to 
shew the more clearly how, and under what auspices, Colo- 
nization was in fact commenced, and where the credit of it 
ought to attach. De Heer Killian Van Rensselaer, as he was 
called, and who became the first Patroon of Rensselaerwyck, 
was a Director of the Dutch West India Company at Am- 
sterdam, and, as described in some old Manuscripts, a chief 
partner. In 1625 De Laet, also a Director, and afterwards 
associated with Van Rensselaer in efforts to plant a Colony, 
published a book on the New World, which had distinctly 
for its object to recommend Colonization to the attention of 
his countrj'men. Attention was aroused, but no movement 
was effected for four years. In 1629, a change was produced 
in the Constitution of the Central Government, so far as to 
allow the appointment of Nine Commissioners at Amster- 
dam, for the government of the affairs of New Netherland. 
Of this Commission, Van Rensselaer was one ; and it is fair 
to infer, from his position and wealth, as well as from subse- 
quent events, that he had already conceived strongly the 
idea and intention of planting a Colony in America, and 
hence that he had a principal share, by his influence and ex- 
ertions, in bringing about that event which first, and shortly 
after, led to Colonization in this quarter, under the Com- 
pany. This was the adoption, in the same year — 1629 — by 
the College of XIX, of a liberal Charter of Privileges for 
Patroons planting Colonies in New Netherland. f Van Rens- 
selaer lost no time in preparing to avail himself of the terms 
of this Charter. The very first purchase of land made by the 



* Opper Koopman and Onder Koopman — or Comniis. 
\ Vide Charter at length, in Moulton's " New York," Part ii., p. 389. 

349 



Historical Sketch. 

Dutch, /(?;- a rcgu/ar Colony, within this State, so far as I have 
been able to discover, was made for Killian Van Rensselaer. 
The land lay near Fort Orange, but below it, and, having its 
extent on the River defined, was to run " two days' journey 
in landwards"; and the purchase was made, on the 8th day 
of April, 1630, of four Indian owners, or Chiefs, at Fort 
Orange, in the presence and by the agency of Gov. Minuit 
himself, then holding the chief authority,* and with pay- 
ments in merchandize to the full satisfaction of the native 
lords of the soil.f Other purchases, from various owners, 
were soon after made for the same proprietor — one the same 
year, and the last in 1637 — which, all together, made up the 
full complement of Territory, constituting finally, the Colony 
of Rensselaerwyck. These acquisitions were confirmed to 
the purchaser shortly after they were severally made, by the 
public authorities at Fort Amsterdam. 

The way was-^ now prepared, and Van Rensselaer, very 
promptly, after the first purchases had been made for him, in 
1630, sent out his Colonists to occupy the ground. The con- 
dition of the Charter to Patroons required that every Colony 
of a Patroon, within four years, should consist of fifty per- 
sons, and none under fifteen years of age, and that one 
fourth part of these should be planted within the first year. 
There can be little doubt that this requisition was complied 
with in Rensselaerwyck. Nor did this satisfy the Proprietor. 
He was shrewd and careful enough to take advantage of a 
clause in the Charter — inserted there, as would seem from 
subsequent events, with scarcely a belief that the provision 
could possibly be available to any body — which offered to 
any Patroon who would settle a larger number of persons 
than fifty in his Colony, liberty to extend his purchases and 



* Wouter Van Twiller, afterwards Governor, was then here, sent out 
under the orders of the Nine Commissioners of Amsterdam, probably with 
a view to further the design of some of them in regard to Colonization, but 
not yet, it would seem, in command, since it is certain that he bore no su- 
persedeas to Minuit. Van Twiller returned to Holland, and came back 
again in an armed ship, and with some state, to take possession of the 
Government in 1633. Moult. Hist., Part ii., p. 419 — also vide lb., p. 400. 

f Book of Patents Translated — Sec. of State's Office — p. 6. 
350 



Historical Sketch. 

possessions proportionably beyond the limits originally pre- 
scribed in the Charter.* These prescribed limits were a 
stretch of eight English miles on a Navigable River, with 
land running back into the country on either side.f The 
Patroon of Rensselaerwyck provided himself with a Terri- 
tory for his Colony, extending twenty-four miles on the 
River, and embracing the land on either shore, and obliging 
himself, therefore, according to the terms of the Charter, to 
begin his little Empire in the West, with a subject popula- 
tion of one hundred and fifty adult souls, besides the usual 
complement of children. 

The Colony of Rensselaerwyck, planted under the direc- 
tion and at the sole expense of the Patroon, was the first 
successful Colony, planted expressly as such by the Dutch, in 
America. The first settlement of this State by a body of 
emigrants from the Netherlands, forming a regular Colonial 
establishment, under the provisions of the Company's Char- 
ter, was at Albany. But this was not the only effort to pro- 
mote and effect Colonization in America made by the enter- 
prising and sagacious Van Rensselaer. One of his asso- 
ciates in the Direction of the West India Company, and a 
fellow Commissioner, had caused a tract to be secured 
to him, by purchase from the Indian Owners, lying on 
the Delaware, then within the ample boundaries of New 
Netherland. It would seem that Godyn, the purchaser, 
felt himself alone unequal to the burthen of planting a 
Colony there ; and an Association was formed for the pur- 
pose, consisting of several Directors, of whom Killian Van 
Rensselaer was one. In the fall of 1630, they fitted out an 
expedition, under De Vries, a skilful conductor, and set 

* The heavy expense of planting a Colony, at that time, may be judged 
of, in some measure perhaps, by a single example. I have found the rec- 
ord of an account presented by Gov. Van Twiller to Sir Killian Van Rens- 
selaer (as Van Derkemp has it,) in August, 1638, for the fare and trans- 
portation of two families only, in the Company's ships, the whole of which 
account amounted to i^i,.M3 12. Currency ! I cannot help suspecting that 
there must have been something besides fare in this account. — i Alb. Rec- 
ords — Trans. 

f Or sixteen miles on such River, with land on one side of the River 
only. 

351 



Historical Sketch. 

down on the Delaware a Colony of thirty souls. This Col- 
ony was unfortunate. Within two years every soul had per- 
ished by the weapons of the Savages, in revenge of an un- 
provoked and wanton injury. But calamitous as the result 
was to the settlers, the attempt was not without its value, 
and it led to important consequences. This was the first 
settlement in Delaware, and was earlier than any in Pennsyl- 
vania or New Jersey ; and it is due to Killian Van Rensse- 
laer and his associates in fitting out this Colonizing expedi- 
tion that Delaware exists, at this day, as an Independent 
State.* 

Colonization was now fairly commenced at and around 
Fort Orange, on the shores of the noble Hudson ; and about 
1637, the Patroon of this Colony appeared in person to take 
charge of his Estate and his People. The full history of the 
Colony of Rensselaerwyck would not only be interesting, but 
would contribute, not a little, towards pouring a full and 
steady light on the condition and circumstances of the Prov- 
ince of New York, in the period of its birth and early years. 
On this occasion, however, I can only recall its prominent 
features. 

The United Provinces of Holland, it must be remembered, 
never themselves undertook Colonization any where. They 
encouraged it, but they would not put their own hand to the 
work ; and the mode in which encouragement was given in 
the case before us, shewed clearly the intention of transfer- 
ring to America the feudal and aristocratical institutions of 
the Father land. The old Aristocracy, however, content 



* About a quarter of a century after the first purchase had been made for 
Van Rensselaer, at Fort Orange, a claim was set up by Godyn, De Laet 
and others, or their descendants, to a partnership interest in the Colony of 
Rensselaerwyck. The claim was presented by Petition, before the Lords 
Directors of the Company at Amsterdam, and, by them, was referred to 
the Director General and Council at New Amsterdam. The demand was 
not allowed. It rested in written .'\rticles of Agreement, which were pro- 
duced, and bore date Oct. 16, 1630. They had reference, no doubt, to the 
Delaware Colony ; and the attempt to make them apply to the Colony of 
Rensselaerwyck probably grew, honestly enough, out of the vagueness of 
ideas with which every thing belonging to territorial matters in the New 
Wbrld was viewed at this period. 
352 



Historical Sketch. 

with the power and the consideration it enjoyed at home, 
was not to be transplanted ; but the New World was to have 
a new Aristocracy, formed out of the best materials that 
could be spared from the old. The Prince would not come 
here, and, as a general thing, the old nobles would not 
come ; but out of that new and enterprising class which 
Commerce had formed, and by the forming of which liberty 
had been greatly a gainer, a feudal and landed Aristocracy 
was to be created for the uses of the rising world of New 
Netherland. 

In the Charter of the West India Company it was made 
the duty of the Lords Directors to provide, in some form, 
for the settlement, in lime, of the Countries of which they 
should possess themselves ; while yet the Stations of the 
Company every where were to be governed by their own 
high officers, with military and brief authority, and Com- 
merce, and the spoil of the national enemy, were evidently 
the chief consideration. When, however, the College of 
XIX came to look after the subject of Colonization, they 
adopted, very naturally, a system in perfect harmony with 
the political complexion of the Government at home. In 
the Charter of Privileges framed by them, they held out in- 
ducementS to Particular Persons and Masters, as they were 
there called, as well as to Patroons. But, though Holland 
was a Republic, and fit, therefore, to be the Mother of a Re- 
public ; though by her Federal Union of Provinces she was 
about to offer to America a most valuable precedent for the 
guaranty of National Liberty ; though by her toleration and 
her steady good sense, her soil was now the Asylum of the 
oppressed for religious opinions, of all nations ; and though, 
on the whole. Freedom in the Netherlands, instructed in 
long wars for Independence, was greatly superior to any 
thing of the sort among her neighbors ; yet popular liberty 
was, as yet, but little advanced in Holland. Citizens and 
artizans had begun to look up, for personal wealth and per- 
sonal worth were beginning to be appreciated ; and Muni- 
cipal office, and even the Aristocratic station of Burgomas- 
ter, were not wholly beyond their line of vision. But, then, 
the tillers of the soil — the boors of the farms and the fields 

353 



Historical Sketch. 

— knew little of Freedom — they had hardly yet heard so 
much as a note from her trumpet. They knew what protec- 
tion was, and what kindness was ; but they had none of that 
consciousness of being free, and feeling power, which alone 
could prompt them to desire a change of place as likely to 
lead to the bettering of their condition and prospects. 
Voluntary emigration, therefore, was not to be expected 
from them. They had no religious persecution to fly from, 
as other American Colonists had, and indeed few, if any, 
persecutions of any sort, and they had not begun yet to 
hanker after a share in politics. It is evident enough, there- 
fore, that the hopes of Colonizing their possessions in Amer- 
ica rested, almost wholly, on the Patroons, and to them they 
offered the inducements proper to make them contemplate 
with favor the idea of changing their country. The feudal 
Lordships of Europe — those Baronial possessions and estab- 
lishments which abounded on the Continent and in England, 
and which were not unknown in Holland — enjoying more or 
less independence, and having more or less of the preroga- 
tives of sovereignty — these offered the example of establish- 
ments for the North American Province of the Dutch. The 
model was proposed, and we have seen that Killian Van 
Rensselaer was prompt to act upon the suggestion. 

What, then, was the political Constitution of the Colony 
of Rensselaerwyck ? And what was the power and authority 
of the Lord of this Colony ? Doubtless some modification 
took place, from the originals, to suit the circumstances of 
its condition in a distant and barbarous country. Holland 
had thrown off the oppressions of bigotry and absolutism ; 
and liberty there consisted in preserving the Commercial 
Aristocracy of the Municipalities, and the feudal immunities 
of the landed interest, against any tendencies to Executive 
encroachments on the part of their own chosen Stadtholder. 
This was the sort of liberty to be planted here ; the same 
general system was to prevail here, as soon as time and 
events should ripen the country for it ; with this difference 
of course, that besides the fealty due from the Cities, and 
the Colonies of Patroons, to the Central Authorities in the 
Province, all, and the Province itself, were to owe a general 
354 



Historical Sketch. 

allegiance and subjection to the States General in Holland. 
Colonies of Patroons were an important feature in this sys- 
tem ; and of these Colonies, that of Rensselaerwyck was the 
most notable and important. 

The Colony, of course, had its foundation in the Charter 
of Privileges ; but the full powers of the Patroon can only 
be understood by reference to the analogous powers of 
feudal dignitaries. The design was to give him, or rather to 
leave him, as much authority as would enable him to pro- 
tect and govern his people, and protect and defend himself 
and his possessions, as well against foreign aggression, as 
against domestic revolt. His position, in the midst of a wil- 
derness, pressed closely on every side by rude, warlike and 
powerful tribes, was not altogether unlike that of the feudal 
Lord in his solitary castle, hemmed in with hereditary and 
revengeful foes ; and we have abundant evidence to shew 
that, in construing their own authority, the Patroons of this 
Colony, and those who acted for them, regarded their powers 
for military defences and operations as fully equal to the 
exigencies of their condition and times. At first, indeed, 
and in the feebleness of his young Colony, the Patroon bor- 
rowed a principal means of defence against violence from 
without, from the Military Station still held by the West India 
Company, in the midst of his possessions. -His first Trading, 
or Custom House, with some other tenantries, were placed, for 
this purpose, under cover of the stone guns and other pieces 
which defended the walls of Fort Orange.* The first resi- 
dence of the Patroon himself — which was on the upper end 
of the Patroon's Islandf — was not too far off, perhaps, to 
have been within the range of protection afforded by the 
Company's cannon. But this means of defence was not 
long, if it ever was, exclusively relied upon. We find the 
Patroon himself possessed of the munitions of war, and 
having Forts of his own, planted with cannon. We find him 
at an early period fortifying an Island in the River, and 
claiming so much of the regal power, which seems to belong 
to the independent possession of such warlike instruments 



* 7 Alb. Records, p. 197. 

f This appears from an ancient Map in the possession of the family. 

355 



Historical Sketch. 

and defences, that his Commander there does not hesitate to 
fire into a Dutch vessel which presumes to pass without low- 
ering her colors as an act of homage to Rensselaerstein. 
We find him receiving, at various times, large quantities of 
powder and ball : his own dwelling is pallisaded, fortified, 
and manned ; and, finally, he is able to lend three of his own 
cannon to the Company's Commander at Fort Orange, and 
three more he causes to be mounted on the walls of the 
Church, and he constructs and garrisons an independent 
Fortress as an outpost in the woods. Happily, this Colony, 
by a prudent and humane policy from the beginning, escaped 
the calamities which befel so many others in the country, by 
the hostile incursions of the Indians. They had no known 
and public enemy among the Savages near them, except 
those residing at Esopus ; and no occasion arose for actual 
hostilities. These Esopus Indians, however, were warlike 
and implacable ; and threw the Colony often times into great 
alarm. They contrived, at one time, by stratagem, to carry 
off several prisoners, and among them the fair daughter of 
the Company's Chief Officer at Fort Orange ; and it was not 
until a few months before the surrender of the Province to 
the English that they succeeded in concluding a firm peace 
with these troublesome neighbors. But the right which the 
Patroons claimedto engage, for the sake of defence, in war- 
like operations, if need should be, and the state of warlike 
preparation which they found it convenient to provide and 
display, all together created, at times — certainly without 
any sufficient foundation — a feeling of distrust and uneasi- 
ness on the part of the Central Government of the Province, 
and of the Authorities at home, lest the Colony of Rensse- 
laerwyck should some day yield to temptation, and, setting 
up for itself, should be wholly lost to the parent country. 
The Chamber of Directors at Amsterdam made formal com- 
plaints against the Patroon and the Directors of his Colony 
for the time being, amongst other things, that their terri- 
torial limits had been quite too much extended ; that they 
had manifested a design to monopolize the whole trade of 
the North River — a design, indeed, openly avowed, as they 
alleged, by the Gov. Wouter Van Twiller ; who, since he 
356 



His to rica I Sketch . 

had been recalled from the Government of the Province, had 
become the Guardian of the Patroon of the time, in his non- 
age, and, though in Holland, was the principal agent and 
director of the affairs of the Colony— that they had actually 
set up a claim to " staple-right," and were prepared to en- 
force it by a fortification at Rensselaerstein*— and, finally, 
that the oath of fealty and allegiance, exacted of the Colo- 
nists, to the Patroons, savored of independence, and even sedi- 
tion, inasmuch as no notice whatever was taken in the oath, 
of their High Mightinesses, the States General, as the ulti- 
mate Superiors of the Colony and its Patroons. They dep- 
recated the occurrence of a war between the Dutch and the 
English Colonists in America— a serious difference having 
already set'in— lest, by some means, in the progress of the 
war, Rensselaerwyck should be separated from their do- 
minions. 

In all this, it is evideni, I think, from a cursory view of the 
records of the controversy almost constantly going on be- 
tween the Directors of the Colony and those of New Nether- 
land, that the Corporation took council chiefly of its fears. 
There was, undoubtedly, a disposition at times, if not to en- 
large the jurisdiction and powers of the Colony, at least to 
use all that belonged to it ; but the truth really is, that the 
Company, having early discovered that the legitimate ad- 
vantages and importance of the Colony, under the efficient 
direction and energy of Killian Van Rensselaer, were greater 
than was quite consistent with all the monopoly and profits, 
all the while intended to have been secured to the Corpora- 
tion, sought every favorable occasion afterwards to inter- 
pose, and interfere injuriously with its unquestionable rights 
and interests. We shall see abundant proofs of this as our 
narrative proceeds. 

But the power of the Patroons for the defence of their 
Colony by military array, was not more remarkable than 



* " Staple-right" is defined to be a privilege granted by the Sovereign to 
the inhabitants of a certain place to compel Masters of Vessels, trading 
along their Coasts, to discharge their cargo there for sale, or on failure 
thereof, to pay certain duties.— Van der Linden's Institutes of the Laws of 
Holland— p. 588. 

357 



Historical Sketch. 

that which they possessed in regard to its police and govern- 
ment. The Charter, so often referred to, expressly clothed 
them with the High and Low Jurisdiction of the Feudal 
Law. This gave to the Patroons the original and absolute 
right to administer, in person, or by functionaries of their 
own appointment, the whole justice of the Colony, in both 
branches of Jurisprudence. The decision of all causes, civil 
and criminal, belonged in the first instance to them, in the 
Courts of the Colony. They had the right of trying crimes 
of every kind, even the highest, and those punishable by the 
loss of life or limb, as well as those inferior and petty offences 
wliich, on conviction, were followed by fine and imprison- 
ment. Originally, where feudal Jurisprudence prevailed, the 
sentences of the Baronial Courts were final, and no appeal 
lay to any Superior Court. But, before the time we speak 
of, the efforts of Sovereigns everywhere had been directed to 
the correction of this dangerous concession to the Barons, 
and appeals, at least in cases affecting limb or life, were gen- 
erally allowed. It is supposed, that to that extent, and 
strictly to that extent only, could appeals be taken to the 
decisions and judgments pronounced in the criminal courts 
of the Patroons. Indeed, in these cases, if any such occurred, 
a review of the proceedings was probably a matter of course, 
before execution of the sentence could be had, and whether 
the party implicated chose to enter an appeal or not. In re- 
gard to the lesser offences and misdemeanors, the Jurisdic- 
tion of the Patroons seems to have been complete and final. 
And so it would have been in all civil suits, according to the 
feudal law ; but the Charter provided expressly for an ap- 
peal to the Company's Commander and Council in New 
Netherland, from all judgments, by the Courts of the Pa- 
troons, for upwards of fifty guilders — a little less than twenty- 
one Dollars.* 

Such was the Jurisdiction of the Patroons of this Colony. 
Justice, in both branches, was administered in their name, 
and by their authority. They appointed all the officers of 
Justice in the Colony — as well as their Commercial officials, 
and their Military Commanders. The Sheriff and the Secre- 



■ Just $20. 83 J. 

358 



Historical Sketch. 

tary of the Colony — Officers having more to do with the 
prosecution of suits and complaints and the trial of causes, 
than those titles in our system would indicate— were put in 
Commission by them.* They did not, so far as I have dis- 
covered, delegate the Judicial power which belonged to 
them, or to the Chief Director of the Colony for the time, 
any farther than that power was committed to the Sheriff 
and Secretary. In imitation of the policy and practice of 
the old Barons, of Princes of inferior rank, and even of the 
highest Sovereigns in the early part of the Middle Ages, they 
presided in their own tribunals, in cases of importance or 
delicacy, and dispensed the justice of the Colony in person. 
Regularly, the due administration of justice would have re- 
quired the Patroons to have their Colonial prison, for the 
incarceration of such offenders as should be condemned to 
that punishment. But a separate prison of their own was 
not indispensable. A Jail was constructed in Fort Orange — 
probably by arrangement between the Colony and the Com- 
pany ; certain it is, it was used for their mutual accommo- 
dation. To it the Sheriff of Rensselaerwyck committed his 
prisoners. In the Courts of the Colony, all causes and dis- 
putes between the freeholders and inhabitants of the Terri- 
tory were triable — all questions about titles to lands, about 
possessions or boundaries, about contracts, and about inju- 
ries to property, persons or character. And here, also, the 
Patroons brought suits, or might have done so, against the 
tenants and freeholders of the Colony, for the quit-rents and 
other demands due to them — a jurisdiction and right cer- 
tainly calling for great moderation and forbearance on the 
part of the Patroons and their Officials, to prevent the abuses 
and oppressions to which so partial a tribunal would be 
likely to tend. 

The brief view now taken of the Constitution and polity 



* Shortly before the Surrender to the English, the Directors at Amster- 
dam set up a claim to create a Sheriff for Rensselaerwyck ; and they in- 
structed Gov. Stuyvesant — not to appoint a ne%v Sheriff — but to re -appoint 
Sheriff Swart, already in Commission under the Patroon, and induce him 
to consent to receive a Commission from the Company ! — Letter of 25th 
April, 1659, 4 Alb. Records, p. 301. 

359 



Hist eric a I Sketch. 

of the Colony, may be enough to give us a general impres- 
sion, and not perhaps an unjust one, of the political condition 
of the Colonists under the power and government of the 
Patroons. The relations between the two did not certainly 
leave to the Colonists that freedom, and give them that 
security, which men enjoy under popular institutions. But 
it must not be inferred that their condition was one in which 
they suffered oppression or injustice. It is true, that they 
were vassals — not, however, in the sense in which that word 
is often understood. They were bound, by a solemn oath, to 
bear true faith and fealty to the Lord and Governor of the 
Colony. They were his immediate subjects, and bound to a 
lawful obedience. But their Superior was himself a vassal— 
to those high Authorities from whom he derived his right 
and his power ; he was himself a subject, and his people were 
not only his subjects, but they were the subjects also of the 
same Sovereign to whom his own allegiance was due. There 
appears to have been, from the papers I have examined, and 
I have no doubt there was, as a general thing, a relation of 
kindness and mutual attachment subsisting between them 
and him. He was what his title indicated he would be, their 
Patron— their protector and friend. He promulgated to them 
just laws enough, and exercised just authority enough, to 
compel them, wherever they might be otherwise disposed, to 
be orderly and peaceable, and observe the obligations of 
honesty and right, towards him, and towards one another. 
For the rest, his government was paternal. It was exercised 
in composing disputes and differences, in bestowing friendly 
counsel, and, through the natural influence of his position 
and character, reconciling enmities and healing feuds. The 
care of their defence and protection, in their exposed situa- 
tion, rested with him. He had the means of such defence, 
which they had not ; and, having both their gratitude and 
their confidence, they were proud to be his soldiers, as well 
as his subjects, and were ready, at any time, to fight with 
him, or to fight for him, as he should direct and command. 
They enjoyed, it must be remembered, feudal liberty — a lib- 
erty by no means to be despised, at that time of day. It 
was one of the best forms of liberty, whicii, at that day, the 
360 



Historical Sketch. 



world had to offer. The feudal system came originally as a 
ehef to men from the burthens and oppressions of wo se 
systems which U displaced ; and though it was itself made 
subsequently the instrument of grinding exactio^ and o 
eve.y species of petty tyranny, so that the people w re glad 
to fly to their Sovereigns, and to absolute governments for 
protection, yet before the period we speak of,^the system wha 
remained of it, and in its modified forms, had become one 
which favored freedom, and was not without its guamntie 

feltuTeT't'f "'■""'' -dependence. There wfs a sing e 
feature in It of no inconsiderable importance and value and 
which belonged to it as applied to this Colonv as wdl at 
The'f t"^: *T ''"" "^^ '''' °^'^--" '- -'^ it or not 

lands f'otthrpf ''' ''^'^"^-^^ -"^"^^^ ^'^-^ holding 
ands from the Patroons were-were as much, and as essen 
.ally, members of the Criminal Courts of the Colony as was 

the Patroon himself, whenever trials were to be held fo Z 

t°Lr ;f';t:/T °' °'^"^^^- ^'^^^-^ themstlts th^ 
caniTal or h .' "' '"-^ "° """ ^°"^^ ^^ <^°--ted for a 
capital, or high crime, without the verdict of a competent 
number of his peers. t-ompetent 

I have not found, in my researches, nor do I believe that 
there was anything seriously to complain of in the co^duc 
of the administration of the Colony-especially while it wa 
jn the hands of the Patroons themselves, or of any" Th 
family Dunng the non-age of a Patroon, which, by'the law 
of Holland, extended, I think, to twenty-five years I find th" 
Colony in possession and under the Command and Director 
hip of one Brandt Van Slecktenhoorst, who certainly did 
seem disposed, in some things, to carry matters with a hfc^h 
hand. He is accused by the Director General and Counci' 
at Manhattan, of making his judicial decisions absolute and 
final in al cases, and compelling the inhabitants to forego 
he use of their undoubted right of appeal. I have no^ 
found, ho.-ever, any evidence that any such complaint e^e 
emanated from the inhabitants themselves ; and it i ol 

stThlt -r '° T "^'"°''^°' ^^^ worthy 'commande,t 
say that in my judgment, his accusers in this case ought ^ot 
to be his judges. His zeal, no doubt at times intemperate! 



Historical Sketch. 

for the honor and interests of his Orphan Patroon — as he 
repeatedly styles him — and for the Colony, and his resolute 
determination that no rights should be lost for non-user dur- 
ing his administration, led him into sharp collision with the 
Authorities of the India Company, and, finally, into very 
serious troubles. But I have seen no evidence to show that 
he practised, or attempted — as he was accused — any imitation 
of those Barons of France, of whom history records that they 
put to death, or mutilated, such persons as presumed to ap- 
peal from the sentences of their courts ; nor, indeed, that he 
ventured on any other, and less atrocious, means of securing 
such an object. 

The truth, I think, is that the India Company, on mature 
deliberation, were not quite satisfied with the work of their 
own hands, and they manifested too much disposition to re- 
claim, or at least to limit and restrain, by unfair proceedings, 
some of those large powers and privileges which they had at 
first so freely bestowed.* The Director Van Rensselaer, 
shrewd, sagacious, and far-seeing, had undoubtedly pos- 
sessed himself of eminent advantages at Rensselaerwyck. 
The point where he took his station was, at the beginning, 
the chief Mart of the Fur trade in the Province, and so it 
must long conti-nue to be ; and until the purchase and settle- 
ment made by the Patroon, this Mart, and the trade there, 
were in the hands of the Company, and protected by the 
Armament at Fort Orange. The Company, moreover, in 
their Charter to Patroons, while they granted to them the 
free liberty of traffic, with their Coasters, " from Florida to 
Terra Neuf," and even a share in the Cod Fishery, had been 
careful to reserve to themselves an exclusive right, every 
where, to the trade in peltries — but with this exception, that 
the Patroons might enjoy that trade also, on certain specified 
terms, at those points and places where the Company might 
not maintain a trading establishment. Under this stipula- 



* In a Letter from the Directors in Holland to the Governor of the Prov- 
ince, dated March, 1657, manifesting throughout great jealousy of the 
power of the Patroon, they say, speaking of the Authority exercised in this 
Colony — "this example makes us averse to permit any one in future such 
an unlimited Colonization and Jurisdiction." — 4 Alb. Records, p. 50. 
362 



Historical Sketch. 

tion in the Charter, the Fur trade at this important point 
fell eventually into the hands of the Proprietor of the Col- 
ony — for, after a few years, the Company, engrossed I sup- 
pose with other matters, ceased to supply their Trading 
House in Fort Orange with the necessary articles of Mer- 
chandize with which to carry on the traffic with the Indians. 
Not only was the derelict trade promptly seized and en- 
grossed by the Patroon— being then, 1644, the original Killian 
Van Rensselaer — but measures were immediately taken to 
secure it, if need be, by force of arms, against all impertinent 
intermeddling with it. This was the purpose with which 
Bearen Island was fortified, and a garrison placed there. 
The Company's own vessels might still have free access to 
Fort Orange ; to them the navigation of the River was open 
as ever — but not so the vessels of independent traders. 
These could, of course, find no port to enter or traffic in 
above Bearen Island, except within the limits of Rensselaer- 
wyck, and every independent trader would learn the terms 
on which the port of the Colony might be entered, on mak- 
ing a respectful inquiry at the Fortress of Rensselaerstein. 

This proceeding was viewed with exceeding jealousy and 
distrust by the Director General of New Amsterdam ; but it 
was persisted in, in spite of the strongest remonstrances ; and 
when, by the death of the Proprietor, the administration 
and care of the Colony, in behalf of his Heir, devolved on 
the Commander Van Slecktenhoorst and Gov. Van Twiller, 
nothing certainly, within the limits of a legitimate authority, 
was omitted, to secure to the Colony all its rights, and all its 
advantages. From this time forward a systematic encroach- 
ment on the rights of the Colony was made by the Com- 
pany. The Company had never purchased, and did not own, 
a foot of land within the Colony. The soil on which Fort 
Orange stood was included in the purchase made by the 
Patroon. Yet not only was the Fort itself maintained, with- 
out necessity, if not against right, but a claim was set up to 
as much land around it as would be swept by the range of 
its guns. The Trading Factory of the Patroon had been 
reared, originally, on the very borders of the dry Moat which 
surrounded the Fortress, and near it the cottages of a village 

363 



Historical Slcctch. 

settlement had already begun to cluster. This was the vil- 
lage of Beverwyck — a neat and promising little Hamlet, the 
germinating principle of the future City of Albany — and 
forming beyond all question a part of the Colony of Rens- 
selaerwyck. It was the Patroon's village, planted on his own 
land, under his leave and auspices, by his own colonists, 
brought into the country at his own cost. This was a case 
which had been prospectively provided for in the Charter 
from the Company, by expressly conceding to the Patroon the 
right to govern, by officers and magistrates of his own ap- 
pointment, any town, or city, of which he should be the 
founder. But the Company early determined not to permit 
this Colony to become too prosperous, or the Patroons to 
acquire too much consideration and power. By claiming 
the territory around the Fort within the sweep of their guns, 
they brought the entire village of Beverwyck within the grasp 
of their unwarrantable demands. They first insisted that 
the Commander Van Slecktenhoorst should erect no more 
dwellings for his Colonists in that quarter. The worthy 
Commander protested, and went on as usual. Gov. Stuy- 
vesant sent a military expedition — that is to say, an officer 
with a handful of soldiers and sailors, who took a fortnight's 
time for their campaign up the river, and entered the peace- 
ful village of Beverwyck in warlike and hostile array. They 
even dared to enter the dwelling and castle of the Patroon, 
with arms in their hands. But great as was this outrage and 
violence offered to the dignity and rights of an independent 
Patroon, by an armed invasion of his territory and jurisdic- 
tion — so, at least, was it esteemed by Commander Van Sleck- 
tenhoorst, who assaulted the proceeding with Proclamations 
and Protests in unsparing quantity — the expedition was a 
fruitless one, and Gov. Stuyvesant took nothing by his irreg- 
ular motion. The act was even disavowed by the authorities 
in Holland ; they affected utterly to disbelieve that the 
" honorable, valiant, wise and prudent Petrus Stuyvesandt " 
could ever have offered such an indignity to the honorable 
and valiant Van Rensselaer of Rensselaerwyck. In the 
mean time the constructing of houses in the Hamlet pro- 
ceeded, and the prudent Governor changed his mode of at- 
364 



Historical Sketch. 

tack. He undertook to give to the inhabitants in the village 
permanent leases for the soil, and to absolve them from their 
oath of allegiance to the Patroon. He even appointed 
magistrates for Beverwyck, and caused Courts to be opened, 
and justice to be administered there, in the name of the 
Provincial authorities. All this while the full-blooded Neth- 
erlander, Van Slecktenhoorst, was neither dismayed nor idle. 
He went on with the construction of his houses in Bever- 
wyck ; and he gave personal notice to the Company's officer 
at Fort Orange, who had been directed to put that Fortress 
in repair, that he must not touch a stone or a stick of timber 
for that use, within the Colony of Rensselaerwyck. This 
was awkward for Mr. Commissioner Van Brugge. He held 
back for instructions, and, as necessity knows no law, he was 
ordered to take the materials for repairs wherever he could 
find them, on grounds uncultivated or unenclosed. We may 
suppose that, with the sturdy Commander of Rensselaerwyck 
to deal with, he found the execution of his orders neither 
easy nor pleasant. For several years the controversy went 
on, and at last the purposes of the Director General and the 
Company were only consummated by an act of treachery. 
Van Slecktenhoorst was arrested at Manhattan, thrown into 
the Keep of Fort Amsterdam, and detained a close prisoner 
until a new Director for his Master's Colony was appointed. 
He was then released, but only for the purpose of perform- 
ing the ceremonial of installing his Successor in his place, 
which he affirmed could be lawfully done by no one but 
himself. 

With a Director more to the taste of the Governor and the 
Lords Directors of the Company at Amsterdam, the Colony 
was treated with more apparent respect, but in reality with 
no less injustice than before. Gov. Stuyvesant was formally 
instructed by them to take care that he gave no cause of 
offence to the inhabitants of the Colony. They offered their 
congratulations on the peaceable state of affairs between 
them and the people of Fort Orange ; but they did not for- 
get to inform the Governor, at the same time, how important 
it was, and how much it concerned both " equity and liber- 
ty," that the limits between Fort Orange and Rensselaer- 

365 



Historical SkctcJi. 

wyck should be definitely settled. Keeping this object 
steadily in view, the footing which the Company had ob- 
tained in Beverwyck was carefully preserved, and their au- 
thority there gradually extended. Finally, the Governor 
ventured to mark out the boundaries of the possession 
claimed for the Company as the proprietors of Fort Orange. 
These boundaries modestly embraced a mile in extent on 
the River, taking in the entire village of Beverwyck, and 
forming that base line which was afterwards used in the 
original Charter of the city of Albany, and upon which a 
territory of sixteen square miles was carved out of the 
Manor of Rensselaerwyck for the uses of the city. It is 
worth while to add, in this connection, that it was not at last 
deemed safe by the English Gov. Dongan to issue his Patent 
for this territory to the city, until he had first obtained from 
the Patroon of that day a formal Release of the land to the 
King. That release was executed two days before the Char- 
ter of the city was granted. 

I have dwelt on the affairs of this Colony during the rule 
of the Dutch Authorities in the Province of New York at 
such considerable length, though still with small justice to a 
subject of deep interest, that I must now hasten forward, in 
a very unsatisfactory manner, to the conclusion of the history 
on which I have entered. The English Conquest of this 
Province took place in 1664. Jeremias Van Rensselaer, the 
second son of the original Proprietor, was then in possession 
of the Colony of Rensselaerwyck. He lost no time in ap- 
plying to Gov. Nichols to be confirmed in his possession and 
rights. This was readily granted by the Governor, in ac- 
cordance with the general stipulation he had given at the 
surrender ; to operate, however, only to give Mr. Van Rens- 
selaer time to obtain a regular Patent of Confirmation from 
the Duke of York, for whom the Conquest of the Province 
had been made ; and in the mean time it was made his duty 
to see that his Colonists — heretofore his subjects — should 
become the proper subjects of King Charles II., by personally 
swearing allegiance to him. In the confusion of the time, 
and it is probable also for a particular reason which will be 
referred to directly, no Patent for this Estate was given for 
366 



Historical Sketch. 

several years. Meanwhile the possession and right were con- 
tinued to Van Rensselaer, by the orders of successive Gov- 
ernors and the warrants of the Duke. In this state of things 
the Province again changed masters Nine years after the 
surrender, the Authority of the States General was again 
established over New Netherland— only, however, to be re- 
turned into the hands of the English the next year. But 
there was work for Van Rensselaer to do in this brief period. 
He was called before the Lords Commanders and the Honor- 
able Tribune of War at Fort William Henry, to tender, for 
himself and his people, his oath of Allegiance to the new 
powers ; and he was then sent back to the government of his 
Colony, but with greatly restricted authority. The right of 
the inhabitants to a voice in the selection of their own magis- 
trates was distinctly recognized. They were to nominate 
twice the number required, and he was to appoint from their 
nominations. 

In 1674 the English rule over the Province was restored, 
and Jeremias Van Rensselaer died the same year. This 
event — the death of Jeremias, in possession of the Estate, 
with a claim of right more or less extensive— produced, it 
would seem, some embarrassment in regard to the succes- 
sion ; and this was apparently increased by doubts about 
the true law of descent applicable to the case. Jeremias 
was a second son ; the eldest son of the original Proprietor 
was Johannes Baptista, and was undoubtedly, according to 
one rule of the Feudal law— this being a feudal estate— sole 
heir to the Colony and title of his father. But Johannes, 
who was the person spoken of by the bold and faithful Van 
Slecktenhoorst as his Orphan Patroon, and who had been 
early in the Colony, had returned to Holland, while his 
younger brother, Jeremias, had been placed in possession 
with all the powers of government and control, and, it is not 
improbable, with some equitable understanding between the 
brothers in regard to the succession. At any rate a claim 
was set up by the son of Jeremias, as his fathei had occu- 
pied with some claim of right, and died in possession. 
When, however, Johannes died he left an only son, who 
was, of course, by the rule of primogeniture, the sole heir to 

367 



Histo7-ical Sketch. 

the inheritance. But, then, there were other descendants of 
the same common ancestor, and they put in a claim — or one 
was preferred for them — on the ground of the civil law, 
which had been adopted by the Dutch, and which cast in- 
heritances, in equal portions, on all descendants, male and 
female, in the same degree of affinity to the ancestor. The 
civil law of the Dutch could not, however, I think, have 
been applicable to Estates, like the Colony of Rensselaer- 
wyck, held by a strictly feudal tenure, and where, according 
to the notion of the times, the personal dignity of the pro- 
prietor was to be cared for and preserved.* In this state of 
things it was proposed, and an order to that effect was 
given to Gov. Andros, that a Charter should be issued which 
should, for the present, without determining the rule of suc- 
cession in the case, recognize the proprietorship of the right 
heirs of the first owner. I think it not uncharitable to say, 
from the circumstances, that the Duke of York was re- 
luctant to acknowledge a proprietorship in any body, to so 
considerable a portion of that princely estate — the Province 
of New York — to which he had just secured a title, and 
would have been glad if he could have found some plausible 
grounds, at least for cutting down his Dutch principality to 
some more moderate dimensions. 

It is supposed, not without good reason, that the gratitude 
of Charles II., on the recollection of hospitalities and favors 
received at the hands of the representative head of this fam- 
ily, when that accomplished but dissolute Monarch was an 
exiled and necessitous refugee in Holland, led hint to inter- 
pose in behalf of the heirs of the old Director Van Rensse- 



* The rule of succession, or inheritance, under the feudal law, was dif- 
ferent in the different countries of Europe, and seems to have been modi- 
fied at pleasure to suit the notions and the circumstances of the times in 
each. The Seigniories in Canada, under the French, were not subject to 
the law of primogeniture ; nor, on the other hand, did they descend, like 
the peasants' lands, to the children in equal portions. The eldest son rep- 
resented the father, and was to take such a share as might enable him to 
maintain his father's rank and station in life, while the younger children 
were not left without some legal provision. — " View of Canada while sub- 
ject to France," MS. p. 21. 
368 



Historical Sketch. 

laer, by means of which that order was obtained from the 
King's Brother, the Duke of York, to which I have alluded.* 
As it was, however, no execution of this order took place 
until 1685, when Gov. Dongan caused a Charter to be issued 
for that purpose. This Charter was granted to two persons. 
One of these was Killian Van Rensselaer, only son and heir 
of Johannes, and the other was Killian Van Rensselaer, the 
eldest son of Jeremias ; and the Charter was, in terms and 
effect, a grant in trust for tlje right heirs of the Original Pro- 
prietor of the Colony. It embraced the ancient possessions 
of the Patroons, nearly entire, and defined their boundaries ; 
and it converted, in express terms, the old Dutch Colony 
into an English Lordship or Manor, with a broad tract, 
twenty-four English miles by forty-eight in extent — some 
comparatively small parcels of land excepted — and with the 
noble Hudson pouring its flood of navigable waters from 
North to South, through the centre of the territory. Two 
years after, one of the Killians, the son of John Baptiste Van 
Rensselaer, died, and left no issue to succeed to his interest. 
The other Killian, his cousin german, the son of Jeremias, 
became now the representative and sole heir, if the rule of 
primogeniture was to prevail, to the inheritance of his Grand- 
father, the first Proprietor of Rensselaerwyck. In 1704, by 
the order of Queen Anne, this rule was definitely settled and 
adopted in the case, and Killian, the son of Jeremias, received 
a Charter, granting to him the Manor and Lordship of Rens- 
selaerwyck, in absolute propriety. So far as appears, this 
was done with the acquiescence of all ; and whether all did 
acquiesce or not, there can be no doubt it was done in strict 
accordance with legal right. The feudal law, however modi- 
fied by the Dutch, would have cast the main part of the in- 
heritance, if not the whole, on the eldest son living, in the 
direct line of descent. But it was, after all, the English law 
of descents, and not the Dutch, which was applicable, and 
applied to the case. The English claimed — with how much 
truth and propriety it is useless now to inquire, since the 



* There is now in possession of the Van Rensselaer family, at the Manor 
House, a snuff-box, with the Miniature of King Charles II. upon it, which 
was presented by that Prince to their Ancestor on the occasion referred to. 



Historical SkctcJi. 

whole matter was in their own hands — that they held the 
Province of New York, not by right of Conquest, but by 
right of Discovery ; that the country was theirs all the while ; 
and that the Dutch, and all others, who had made settle- 
ments and acquired property in it, while the estates of own- 
ers for the time should not be disturbed or brought into 
question, must submit to the sway of the English law in the 
Province, from the moment the English Authorities were in 
condition to enforce it.* I may here add, that from this first 
Lord of the Manor, through his second son — the eldest hav- 
ing died without issue — the late Stephen Van Rensselaer, 
was the third only, in the direct line of descent. The Manor 
had never been disposed of by will ; and it had never been 
subject to entail ; it took the course of the canons of descent 
established by the law of England, and came to the late Pro- 
prietor by right of primogeniture. 

Between a Dutch feudal Colony, with its Patroon and 
Commanders, its forts and soldiers, its high and low jurisdic- 
tion — and an English Manor, with its Lord and Stewards, its 
Courts-leet and Courts-baron, there was some resemblance, 
and some difference. There was a strong family likeness, 
with a marked diversity of features. They were both of 
feudal origin and character. They were both Estates of 
dignity and power. But a marked distinction is found be- 
tween them, when we come to look at the different estimate 
which was evidently put upon the people belonging to the 
Estate, in the two cases. We have seen already what was 
their condition in the Colony — not one certainly of oppres- 
sion, but not one of freedom. They were regarded as men — 
with rights and privileges — but as men to be protected, and 
not men who could, or ought to have, much right or author- 
ity to protect themselves. In the Manor — I speak now of 
the Manor of Rensselaerwyck, as created by express Charter 



* On this ground, therefore, the English rule of primogeniture was to 
prevail in regard to all inhabitants in the Province of New York ; whereas, 
if the right of England to the Province had been the right of Conquest 
only, the law of descent, with all other laws, as established among, and 
by, the Dutch, would have prevailed, until altered and changed by the 
conqueror. 

370 



Historical Sketch. 

— the case was somewhat changed. In the first place, it was 
only in the King's Courts that the tenants could be called to 
answer for high crimes, and there they must have a Jury of 
the vicinage to try them. Then, although for misdemeanors, 
minor offences and nuisances, they were liable to be prose- 
cuted in the Lord's Courts, and also to be impleaded there 
by each other in their disputes about property, where the 
amounts involved were not large ; and although all contro- 
versies about the right to lands in the Manor were to be de- 
termined, in the first instance, in the same Courts ; yet they 
were themselves — the tenants who were freeholders — the 
judges, and, in strictness, the sole judges, of these very 
Courts ; the Stewards were properly the Registers, and not 
the judges of these tribunals. And, finally, the consideration 
in which the people of the Manor were held, was manifested 
in the voice they had in legislation, through their right to 
elect, with the Lord of the Manor, a Deputy to represent 
them in the General Assembly. In all this, the condition of 
the tenantry was improved, and it was so in some other 
things. They had passed under a new Government — one 
which had impressed upon it some Saxon notions about lib- 
erty and human rights, and of which they were enjoying, in 
some degree, the benefit. 

Still, however, the authority and privileges of the Mano- 
rial Chief were not inconsiderable. The writs for the hold- 
ing of the Baronial Courts were to be issued by him, and it 
was his right to preside in those Courts, in person, or by his 
deputed Steward. To him belonged all fines and amerce- 
ments, imposed on offenders within the Manor, whether by 
his own Courts, or by the Assizes, the Sessions of the Peace, 
or the Oyer and Terminer. To him appertained, also, all 
waifs, estrays, wrecks, deodends, and the like, with the goods 
forfeited by felons within his Lordship. He had the impor- 
tant right of advowson — the sole right to name and present 
the ministers to all churches, built and endowed with glebe, 
on his demesnes ; and authority was given him to elect a 
Representative to the Legislative Assembly — uniting the 
freeholders and inhabitants with him in the election ; the 
benefit of course resulted almost always to himself. The 

371 



Historical Sketch. 

choice was quite sure to fall on himself, or on his friend and 
nominee. 

On looking into the Records of our Colonial Legislature, 
I find the fact of representation from the Manor — which was 
distinct in this respect from the City and County of Albany — 
just as I had expected. From the first Provincial Assembly 
held after the accession of William III. in 1691, down to the 
last in 1775, when the revolution broke out — a period of 
eighty-four years — the place of Representative from the 
Manor was always filled ; frequently by the Proprietor him- 
self, and if not by him, by reason of his minority or other 
disability, then always by some member, or some friend, of 
the family. The first Deputy from the Manor was Killian, 
the son of Jeremias Van Rensselaer ; after twelve years in 
the Assembly, he was called to the Provincial Council. The 
last Deputy was Gen. Abraham Ten Broeck. He was the 
uncle of the late Patroon, by marriage, and his Guardian dur- 
ing his minority, and had the care of his Estate. He repre- 
sented the Manor for fifteen years, and as long as there was 
a Colonial Legislature in which it could be represented. 

While, however, the Proprietor, or some family or personal 
friend of his, uniformly secured the advantage — if advantage 
it was — of an election to the Assembly, it is only an act of 
justice to say, that the interests of the Tenants appear to 
have been, without exception, faithfully represented — how- 
ever it might be supposed that cases would arise, in which 
the interests of the Tenants and those of the Proprietor 
might not be identical. But this is not all, nor the highest 
praise due to the Representatives of Rensselaerwyck. Dur- 
ing almost the entire period of eighty-four years just referred 
to, the political condition of the Province was unquiet. The 
tendencies towards popular liberty were constantly manifest- 
ing themselves, and bringing the Colonial Assemblies into 
sharp collision with the Royal Governors. The Governors, 
as a general thing, went for prerogative and power ; while 
the Assemblies had enough of the blood of the Saxons in- 
fused into them, to stand out for popular rights, and some 
of the guaranties of freedom. I do not think that the Dutch, 
though brought up in a different school, were, on the whole, 
372 



Historical Sketch. 

a whit behind their fellows in acquiring those liberal lessons 
which were studied, recited and enacted in these Political 
Colle-es But how was it with those among the Hollanders, 
who had themselves, or whose ancestors had, but lately come 
•into the. country, expressly with a view to the founding and 
maintaining in it, in their own persons, and in their children, 
a high feudal aristocracy ; and whose pretensions, in this re- 
gard, had been expressly recognized by the new Powers 
with only such modifications as resulted, when an Eng ish 
Monarchy succeeded to the dominion of a Dutch Republic . 
What was their course and conduct in the political conflicts 
of the times? Did they struggle to retain their hold on 
these personal advantages ? Did they seek, by a natura 
sympathy, to strengthen the arm of irresponsible power, and 
encourage the foot of tyranny to press more strongly on he 
neck of prostrate humanity, as symptoms of lite, and the 
awakening consciousness of strength, began to exhibit them- 
selves ' Quite the contrary, as the records of the period 
shew When the Assembly, at its Session in 169 1, framed 
and published its Declaration of Rights-a remarkable act 
for the period, and the first example of the sort, I think, 
among the American Colonies-the Proprietor and Repre- 
sentative of Rensselaerwyck assisted in that bold and nianly 
measure This was the very earliest occasion on which the 
political bias of his mind could have displayed itself Ten 
years afterwards, I find this same individual-a proud feudal 
dignitary of the land-putting his name, with only four 
others of the Assembly, to a paper, which insisted so strongly 
on the rights of the Assembly, in opposition to the encroach- 
ments of Authority, that that Body itself felt obliged, in 
order to charm down the angry elements that had been 
roused to pronounce the instrument disloyal, and even to 
expel its author from the House. In 1747, the Royal Gov- 
ernor Clinton, committed against the House a gross breach 
of privilege and was about to follow an act of injustice with 
an act of tyranny, and dissolve the Assembly. But the As- 
sembly did not choose to receive this last Message from his 
Excellency, till they had transacted a little business on their 
own account. They locked the doors of their Chamber, and 

373 



Historical Sketch. 

laid the key on the table, and proceeded to charge and prime 
some strong Resolutions, to be let off with heavy denuncia- 
tions against the Governor, when the doors should be opened ; 
they made provision, at the same time, for a Manifesto, to be 
drawn up and fulminated, after the dispersion of the Mem- 
bers, and which is one of the most elaborate and remarkable 
papers of our ante-republican history.* In all this proceed- 
ing, the Representative of Rensselaerwyck — a brother of the 
Proprietor — did not hesitate to take his part, on the side of 
right and liberty. I have already stated, that Abraham Ten 
Broeck was the last Representative of Rensselaerwyck in the 
Legislature of the Colony. He was the brother-in-law of the 
late Mr. Van Rensselaer's father — who died at the early age 
of twenty-seven — -and, as I have stated, the uncle and Guar- 
dian of the son ; and he did not misrepresent either in acting 
the part of a good patriot. It is well known, that in the last 
brief Session of the Assembly, held early in 1775, a consider- 
able part, sometimes a majority of the House, were found to 
shrink from any very bold and decided measures. Several 
Resolutions were rejected, which it was feared might seem 
to commit the Assembly to the cause of the approaching 
Revolution. Gen. Ten Broeck had no fears, and voted on 
these occasions with the country and for the country. And, 
finally, when the Revolution came, he fearlessly plunged in, 
with others, to swim with and save his country, or to sink 
with her. He was a Member, and the President, of the Con- 
vention which formed the first Constitution of this State — 
that Convention which sat, at various times, and in seven 
different places, as the exigencies of the war permitted or 
compelled, before the completion of its labors. 

With this brief relation, I conclude this slight sketch of 
the affairs of Rensselaerwyck. It is not a little gratifying to 
find, that even here, where provision had been originally 
made, and which had been carefully continued and preserved, 
to plant a strong Baronial and Aristocratical interest in the 
virgin soil of the New World, in imitation of the established 



* This extraordinary Paper, making sixteen closely printed folio pages, 
in double columns, maybe found in Lot's "Journal of the Colonial Assem- 
bly of New York," vol. ii., p. 206. 
374 



Historical Sketch. 

institutions of Europe— to bear sway by combining to form 
a reigning oligarchy, or else to stand as supporters and but- 
tresses around a superior regal power — even here, not only 
was nothing ever found on which the enemies of freedom 
could rely for support ; but, during all the preparatory pe- 
riod, and when the occasion came at last to call out the brave 
and patriotic— those who would be free and make their coun- 
try so— in defence of human rights and popular liberty, a 
spirit was manifested in full accordance with the popular 
movement and temper of the times. The Manor at Rensse- 
laerwyck— with whatever influence belonged to it— by no 
means inconsiderable— was found invariably on the side of 
freedom and the people. 

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